The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE – Roque Baños

June 20, 2018 3 comments

In 1989 writer-director and former Monty Python member Terry Gilliam began to develop the screenplay for a film called The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which he was co-writing with British scribe Tony Grisoni. While Don Quixote was being finalized Gilliam and Grisoni made Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas together, and then returned to Quixote to begin shooting in 2000, with Johnny Depp and French actor Jean Rochefort in the lead roles. What transpired would eventually become one of the worst examples of ‘development hell’ in the history of cinema, as Gilliam had to abandon production an astonishing three times between 2000 and 2016, due to various issues ranging from financial mis-management to legal wranglings to actor illnesses, and even a flood which destroyed much of the set. The story of Gilliam’s tribulations while making the film even became an acclaimed documentary, Lost in La Mancha, which was released in theaters in 2002. Eventually, against all odds, the film was finally shot and completed in 2017, with Adam Driver, Jonathan Pryce, Stellan Skarsgård, and Olga Kurylenko eventually being the ones in the lead roles. Read more…