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Terry Gilliam is Finally Shooting 'Don Quixote' After This Christmas

by Ethan Anderton
August 8, 2014
Source: The Wrap

After trying for nearly 20 years, director Terry Gilliam seems to finally be ready to shoot The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. The project has been in varying stages of development forever, to the point that there's even a documentary called Lost in La Mancha about Gilliam's struggle to make the film in the 90s. Names like Johnny Depp, Ewan McGregor and Robert Duvall circled at different times to no avail, but now it appears the pieces might be coming together. Gilliam tells The Wrap that financing for the film has been secured and the plan is to shoot the film after this Christmas. However, it's not clear who will star. Read on!

Gilliam says he's hoping to lock down the cast very soon, and the story has changed since he first started this venture, revealing that the story is modernized and a little bit meta, with winks and nods to his own numerous failed attempt to adapt Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's classic Spanish novel. Here's what Gilliam has to say about the project:

“I keep incorporating my own life into it and shifting it. The basic underlying premise of that the version Johnny was involved in was that he actually was going to be transported back to the 17th century, and now it all takes place now, it's contemporary. It's more about how movies can damage people.”

Previously, Depp was slated to lead a modern version of the story as a character named Toby Grisoni, a marketing executive who finds himself "unstuck" in time and travels back to 17th century La Mancha where he then becomes Don Quixote's sidekick and squire Sancho Panza. Robert Duvall and Jean Rochefort had been attached as the real Don Quixote at different times. But now Gilliam says, "Our main character actually made a Don Quixote movie a lot earlier in his history and the effect it had on many people wasn't very nice. Some people go mad, some people turn to drink, some people become whores.” That sounds weird, but we wouldn't expect anything less from Gilliam.

Of course, as has been the case many times before, we won't hold our breath until this film is actually in front of cameras (and maybe not even then). Thankfully, Gilliam is well aware of that fact and says, "“I've done it so many times — or not done it so many times — I'll believe it when I see it. However, I'm behaving as if it's all going to happen as planned.” Well, that's definitely the best attitude to have after so many attempts to make the film fell apart. Stay tuned to see who ends up starring in the film this time, and keep your ear to the ground to see where you can catch Gilliam's latest film The Zero Theorem in theaters.

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