Terry Gilliam to finally shoot Don Quixote with Jack O’Connell in the lead

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Terry Gilliam, if anything, is not a quitter. At least as far as his Don Quixote project is concerned. Over 20 years in the making and having a revolving door of actors attached, from Johnny Depp to Ewan McGregor, Gilliam is at last attempting to shoot this beast early next year with a release sometime in 2016. This time around he has a new leading man in Jack O'Connell (UNBROKEN, 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE). The script itself was written by Tony Grisoni, who collaborated with Mr. Gilliam previously on TIDELAND and FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. Last we heard, Gilliam was going the meta route with Don Quixote, and it looks like that's the version of the story that we'll see on the big screen.

The updated synopsis, according to Variety:

A modern and satirical twist on the tale, DON QUIXOTE stars O’Connell as Toby, a jaded commercials director who travels to Spain for a shoot and comes across a gypsy who gives a copy of his student film — a lyrical re-working of the Don Quixote story set in a quaint old Spanish village. Moved by the discovery, Toby sets off on a bizarre road trip to find the little village where the student student film was shot and gets caught up in a series of catastrophies.

Gilliam's last picture, THE ZERO THEOREM, didn't exactly wow audiences like some of his previous work has (check out our review here). I'm curious to see if this Quixote project will prove to be too little too late or actually deliver a story taking advantage of Gilliam's strengths as a filmmaker. His collaborations with scribe Tony Grisoni have been fruitful thus far, so here's hoping that this project actually comes to completion, if only for Gilliam's sake.

Shooting is set to commence in the the Spring of 2015 for a May 2016 release.

That's O'Connell on the left.  I didn't remember him from 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE, but to be fair, I didn't remember many of the scenes that didn't have Eva Green in it.