At long, long last, one of the great lost projects looks close to happening; almost exactly a decade after cameras started rolling on Terry Gilliam’s passion project “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,” the director has now cast both his lead actors.
The project, which follows a 21st century ad man who’s transported through time and becomes the sidekick to Cervantes’ legendary delusional hero, originally began filming in October 2000, with Johnny Depp as the executive and French actor Jean Rochefort as Don Quixote. However, a series of disasters, including sets flooding and Rochefort suffering a crippling back injury, led to the cancellation of the project after a few days filming.
Rights to the script were held by the insurance company for the longest time, but Gilliam finally got them back a couple of years ago, and he announced at the end of last year that Robert Duvall would take over the role of the elderly windmill-tilter, beating out the rumored likes of Gerard Depardieu and Michael Palin. Johnny Depp’s involvement, however, had been uncertain for a while (and then he just bailed all together) and Colin Farrell turned the role down six months ago, but at Cannes last night, Terry Gilliam revealed to Empire that Ewan McGregor will be filling Depp’s shoes.
Gilliam told the site “Ewan has gotten better over the years. He was wonderful in ‘The Ghost’ ” (suggesting that Gilliam hasn’t actually seen the latest Polanski film. Although we suppose McGregor was at least better than Pierce Brosnan or Kim Cattrall). He also revealed that the budget is $20 million, $15 million less than the original abandoned version. McGregor, like Gilliam, has lost his mojo rather in recent years, but we’re hoping the personal nature of the project will make the former Monty Python member raise his game, and make the decade-long wait worth it for us all.