Looks likes Terry Gilliam has comes to terms with the fact that Johnny Depp won’t be coming back to “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” and is moving forward with the project without him — as in let’s officially consider Depp off the project if we had any remote doubts before.
“We’ve re-written the script,” the director confirmed in an interview with Channel 4. “With Johnny, we started off on the script with very clear ideas of what we were doing and it didn’t work out. He thought it’s best not to go back into that whole area again and that we must move on.”
This statement is backed up by a long-ass, unedited (even all the “umms” and “ahhs”) possibly more than 10,000 words, interview with HitFlix where Gilliams says, “I’m meeting some actors this weekend as a matter of fact” (guys, this isn’t a college newspaper).
Back to the Channel 4 interview. “But I’m more pig headed and more matriarchal and ridiculous, so I said ‘no we’re going to finish this thing.’ [Screenwriter] Tony Grisoni and I have done a considerable [‘Quixote’] rewrite so it’s a slightly different take on the same thing, and I think it’s much better for it.”
Gilliam added that the revised script is “at least two-thirds, maybe even three-quarters” different from the original with significant changes to “the back-story which shoots everything off so even the same scenes mean something different than they did before.” Depp’s departure has also seemingly allowed the director to start from scratch: “Jean Rochefort, who played Quixote, can’t ride a horse, so he’s physically out of it. So, in a sense, it’s really starting fresh.”
The film’s epic production saga, which has spawled nearly a decade, is dear to the director’s heart. “Oh yeah, it represents everything I feel about life: constantly misinterpreting what’s going on around him, determined to make great monumental moments out of these things. I’m a little too close to that character not to finally kill him on the screen.” You don’t say, Terry.
The filmmaker believes that “The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus” — which still hasn’t gained a U.S. distribution deal despite the fact that it contains Heath Ledger’s final onscreen performance — is the pinnacle of his work so far. “I think Parnassus is my magnum opus, I think it’s fantastic. I don’t normally feel that about stuff that I do. It feels like Parnassus is a compendium of everything I’ve done.”