"DON QUIXOTE rides again," says Terry Gilliam–but there's no word on Sancho Panza
Speaking to reporters at the Cannes Film Festival, where his The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus just premiered, director Terry Gilliam confirmed his intention to begin filming The Man Who Killed Don Quixote in 2010–ten years after his first attempt at the project was cut short by a series of disasters immortalized in the award-winning documentary Lost in La Mancha.
“Don Quixote rides again,” Gilliam told the assembled press. “We’ve re-written the script and finally got the script back from the lawyers . . . and the plan is to begin shooting next springtime.”
However, despite what some media outlets are reporting, there is no word yet on whether Johnny Depp, who played a time-traveling Sancho Panza in the 2000 version, will return for Round Two of Terry Gilliam vs. the Windmills of Misfortune. Nor has Gilliam cast his Don Quixote. Gilliam’s announcement at Cannes confirmed only that producer Jeremy Thomas, who won a truckload of Oscars for The Last Emperor, is attached to the project.
“I don’t have anything else to say about it, except that we’re at that beginning stage: get the money, get the bodies and let’s go,” Gilliam said. Quinn Bender of Movieset notes that Gilliam’s brief statement closed the press conference: “Reporters were blocked from asking any further questions as the moderator then abruptly ended the press conference,” Bender writes. So there are no cast members attached to the Don Quixote project yet.
The Zone thanks Emma for the news from Cannes; you can read several articles about The Man Who Killed Don Quixote on the Zone’s News & Views forum. –Part-Time Poet