Terry Gilliamhas been pushing the Don Quixote boulder up the hill for more than two decades, enduring abandoned shoots, dodgy producers, financial complications and casting changes. After all that, he’s finally about to unveil The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, potentially at Cannes, and the first trailer – with French subtitles – is online.
This version – the one that is actually headed for screens – stars Adam Driveras Toby, a once-aspiring filmmaker now settled into the life of a fast-living commercials director juggling affairs and his own ego. He has occasion to visit the small Spanish town where he shot his student opus, a lyrical re-working of Don Quixote. But once he arrives, he discovers that time, and the legacy of his film, have not been kind.
He ends up dragged into an adventure that blends the real and the fantastical, mistaken for loyal squire Sancho Panza by the man (Jonathan Pryce) he once had portray the knight, who has come to believe he’s the real thing. Cue a bizarre road trip…
There has been no official confirmation on the movie premiering at Cannes, but it would certainly be a great capper to a long and difficult journey. We also don’t yet know when it might hit screens, though Amazon Studios is the distributor for the US, the UK and a few other countries. Honestly, we’ll just be glad to see the film after all this time.