Terry Gilliam has confirmed at the premiere of The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus that The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is back on track, nearly 10 years after it fell apart spectacularly. Gilliam also announced that the role of Don Quixote has been re-cast, but he’s refusing to reveal who. “We’re up and running again,” he said. “We’ve rewritten the script and finally got it back, the budget’s come in… and I think we’ve found our Quixote! But who’s it going to be? Well, I’m not going to tell you, but it’ll start next Spring.”

The failed first attempt was shown warts-and-all in the excellent documentary Lost In La Mancha. Here’s an explanation of what went wrong, courtesy of Wikipedia:

“Shooting started in late October of 2000. The first location shoot was at a scenic, barren area north of Madrid, Spain, near a military base. Military fighter jets flew overhead repeatedly, ruining the audio recording and mandating a later re-dubbing in post-production. A flash flood on the second day of filming washed away equipment and changed the color of the barren cliffs, making the previous filming unusable. Rochefort, an able horseman, attempted to ride and act, but was obviously wincing in pain, and required assistance dismounting and walking. He flew to his doctor in Paris, where he was diagnosed with a double herniated disc. For several days the crew attempted to shoot scenes that did not involve Rochefort, but as time passed, it became apparent he would not be able to return. Gilliam decided this was a fatal wound to his project: He had spent two years casting the role of Don Quixote, and Rochefort had then spent seven months learning the English language for the part.”

Gilliam’s career has been full of troubles / bad luck, from the battle with Universal over the final cut of Brazil to the tragic death of Heath Ledger halfway through filming Parnassus. Lesser men would have been disheartened to the point of giving up if faced with such problems, so it’s testament to the creative determination of the man that he is returning to Don Quixote after all this time. But who will play Don Quixote? My advice to Terry is choose someone who can already speak English this time!

Sources: Empire, Wikipedia