EUR: Terry Gilliam ready to take on 'Don Quixote' once again
02 Jun 2009 12:57 AM
MADRID, June 1 AFP - Cult director Terry Gilliam says he plans to restart work on "Don Quixote" in Spain next year after filming in 2000 was abandoned due to a series of mishaps.
"I will film it in Spain, it will be in the spring (next year), and in June I will already be in Madrid for the pre-production," he told the newspaper El Pais in an interview published on Monday.
Gilliam, who has just presented his latest film "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," at the Cannes film festival, says the film will star Johnny Depp as Sancho Panza, the squire to Don Quixote.
"Johnny is very busy with 'Pirates of the Caribbean' but as always he said to me 'call me and I will be there,'" he said.
But the US-born former Monty Python has not yet found an actor to play the title role.
The film is based on the novel by Cervantes, about a knight chasing adventure in 17th-century Spain alongside his faithful but materialistic sidekick Sancho Panza.
In 2000, Gilliam, the director of "Brazil," "Twelve Monkeys" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", gathered $US32 million in financing for a film starring French singer Vanessa Paradis and Spanish actress Rossy de Palma, a muse of Pedro Almodovar.
But when filming began at a remote location north of Madrid, the crew found that military jets were flying overhead. Then, flash floods washed away equipment.
Finally, 70-year-old French actor Jean Rochefort, who was playing the title role, suffered from a double hernia which prevented him from mounting a horse, prompting the insurance company to cancel the project.
All that was left to show was a documentary about the making of the film, screened in cinemas as "Lost in La Mancha".
