Oh, Terry Gilliam. Can I call you Terry? No? Okay then. Mr. Gilliam, your marvelously unique and wonderfully macabre onscreen ventures have always been a treat for my imagination, and I feel that most directors are only nipping at your heels when it comes to creating thought-provoking cinema. So why, oh why do you continue to bark up the tree of impossibility by trying to get a Don Quixote movie off of the ground. Yes, readers, Gilliam is intending on making his dream/nightmare adaptation the follow up to his upcoming sci-fi fantasy The Zero Theorem. And while we at Cinema Blend are pretty sure we’ll get new music from the Beatles before we see Don Quixote, his adamant intentions are respectable.
In talking with ComingSoon, he confirmed the film will be next on his slate, saying, "I think this is the seventh time. Lucky seven, maybe. We’ll see if it happens. This is kind of my default position, going back to that. I actually just want to make it and get rid of it. Get it out of my life."
That’s quite a goal, considering any adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes will take months and months of both pre-production and post-production work, especially with Gilliam’s gigantic vision at the helm. Let us all remember his most successful time with the adaptation was chronicled in the wonderful 2002 documentary Lost in La Mancha, in which Johnny Depp was witty, Jean Rochefort was ill, the sets were enormous, and the production was completely disastrous. We’re still looking at another two years of Gilliam’s life taken away by this long-gestating obsession.
"I don’t know if it will be good or bad," he said. "The dangerous thing is that a lot of people are waiting for it, so I can disappoint a lot of people maybe." The visionary director has disappointed quite a few people with his last three films – 2009’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and 2005’s Tideland, and Brothers Grimm – so I don’t think any of those people would be surprised if his latest attempt at Quixote didn’t fare better. (For the record, I loved Tideland’s moroseness and thought the other two were fine.)
Gilliam’s last attempt at the project bottomed out around three years ago, and as recent at August, Gilliam told Deadline he might be ready to throw in the towel. But that’s apparently no longer the case. Will Robert Duvall and Ewan McGregor re-attach themselves to the project, now that Depp has his own Quixote project in the works? Or would other actors be better suited for the parts? Check out the trailer for Lost in La Mancha below and give us your odds in the comments on this project’s chances of becoming a reality.
