Terry Gilliam’s ‘The Man Who Killed Don Quixote’ May Film After All

Coming Soon is reporting that Terry Gilliam, the former Monty Pythonite turned film director, is once again going to attempt to complete his on again off again project “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. “

The movie was a combination of “Don Quixote” the epic story of a delusional Spanish nobleman who tilts at windmills by Miguel de Cervantes and a “Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.” The plot concerned a modern advertising executive who becomes unstuck in time and finds himself in 16th Century La Mancha where he is taken by the mad would be knight as Sancho, his long suffering companion.

The project has been in development since 1998, according to a page on the thus far uncompleted movie. Shooting even started in 2000, but was quickly abandoned due to flash floods at the location and an ailment that caused Jean Rochefort, the actor who had been cast as Don Quixote, to be unable to sit on a horse. Johnny Depp was to play the role of the ad executive who becomes Sancho. Gilliam had previously directed Depp in a film version of the Hunter S. Thompson classic “Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas.”

The misadventure of the first attempt to film “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” was immortalized in a documentary called “Lost in La Mancha.” There ensued a years-long legal tussle with the insurance company, who had acquired the rights to the project, while Gilliam worked on other projects. One other attempt to bring the movie to the big screen involved Robert Duvall as Don Quixote and Ewan McGregor as Sancho.

Since “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” has been somewhat cursed since its conception, one should not count on it happening until shooting starts and, given the precedence of 2000, not even then. Since the abortive first try Gilliam has directed such films as “The Brothers Grimm,” “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus,” and the current “Zero Theorem.”