Terry Gilliam has finally completed his Don Quixote film after spending almost two decades bringing author Cervantes’ book to life.
The Monty Python star first attempted to make the film, based on the 17th Century novel about a deluded Spanish nobleman, in 1998, but failed numerous times.
The current production of the film, which stars Adam Driver, Jonathan Pryce, and Olga Kurylenko, began in March (17) and has recently wrapped.
“Sorry for the long silence,” he writes on Facebook. “I’ve been busy packing the truck and am now heading home. After 17 years, we have completed the shoot of THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE. Muchas gracias (Thank you very much) to all the team and believers…”
Terry’s adaptation, titled The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, became such a notoriously ill-fated production that a documentary, Lost In La Mancha, was made about his attempts to make the film with Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort in 2000.
One shoot was abandoned after several days when a flash flood damaged the crew’s equipment and French actor Rochefort, who was portraying Quixote, herniated a disc.
The production disaster resulted in a $15 million (£11.6 million) insurance claim – and rights to the film’s script were handed over to insurers, preventing Terry from pursuing the project any further.
By 2009, the filmmaker had regained the rights to the script but another attempt to restart the project with Ewan McGregor and Robert Duvall as the leading men stalled again.
Production was postponed in 2015 after new star John Hurt was diagnosed with cancer. John’s cancer went into remission and the project appeared to be back on track, but the actor passed away in January (17).
Gilliam’s long-awaited production is not the only Don Quixote production in the works – executives at Disney have teamed with producers Gordon Gray and Billy Ray to create a live-action version, and filmmaker Chris Poche is directing Tim Blake Nelson in The True Don Quixote.
