According to Deadline, Johnny Depp has signed on to produce a Don Quixote movie for Disney. The big story is that Terry Gilliam doesn’t seem to be involved. See, back in 2002, Gilliam was the subject of a documentary called Lost in La Mancha, detailing Gilliam’s ultimately doomed production of a film called The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Gilliam tried to get the project off the ground for years, and at one point, Johnny Depp was attached (that’s him and Gilliam in the banner image, via). Depp later dropped out, and Gilliam went on to make The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, which starred Heath Ledger, who died halfway through shooting and had to be replaced by Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law. Who knows what happened between Depp and Gilliam since then, or whether Gilliam eventually gave up on doing his Quixote movie, but Depp had to know how this was going to look when he signed on. YOU’RE KILLING HIM, JOHNNY OH GOD WHY!

Disney has closed a deal for an untitled pitch to be written by Steve Pink [Hot Tub Time Machine] and Jeff Morris, and produced by Infinitum Nihil’s Johnny Depp and Christi Dembrowski. The project is best described as a modern re-imagining of Don Quixote. Depp has long been intrigued with that character, and at one time was attached to the Quixote film that Terry Gilliam has tried to make.

Hard to know what to make of this, since “a modern re-imagining of Don Quixote” could mean almost anything. A hero living in the past, dedicating his life to outmoded principles of morality and groping after the women in his life through a haze of anachronous social ideals – has anyone called Aaron Sorkin? Sorkin should write himself into this, Adaptation-style.

After a disastrous, eventually canceled production in 1999 (chronicled in the documentary Lost in La Mancha), Terry Gilliam was finally getting The Man Who Killed Don Quixote back on track this year, reportedly picking up Ewan MacGregor and Robert Duvall to star.  Well tough sh*t for him, because now WB is making a Don Quixote movie of their own, probably with Channing Tatum doing parkour tricks off a windmill.  (*sad vuvuzela*)

Finish my math homework, Pajiba:

Warner Brothers and producer Joel Silver (Sherlock Holmes, every blockbuster action pic in the 1980s) are fast-tracking a Don Quixote film as an eventual tentpole picture.
And yes: Their intention is clear. They’re going to muck up the original story completely. It’s being described as a Pirates of Caribbean-style swashbuckling version of a story in which we discover that Don Quixote isn’t crazy and that there is, in fact, a fantasy world.  [...] This will be to Cervantes what Robert Downey’s Sherlock Holmes was to Arthur Conan Doyle. Big, brash, and kind of dumb. The pitch is out to writers now.

“Look, everyone knows Don Quixote charged a giant that turned out to be a windmill.  What our movie presupposes is… maybe it didn’t?”

…And Nic Cage is there!  He finds out he belongs to an ancient clan of knighted assassins!  And follows an ancient treasure map that leads him to another dimension, where lives an evil queen that must be defeated!  The world depends on it, but they all think he’s crazy!  And he takes along his only friends, Sancho Panza, aka Michelle Rodriguez, an explosives expert, and Dulcinea Del Toboso, a hot chick with huge jugs and swords!  CURVE THE LANCE!  BODIES HIT FLOOR!  ROCINANTE IS A CHEETAH! TICK TICK TICK… SLUTS!  (fin).

(“Open up, little man, I know you’re hiding a pot of gold in your belly.”)

Terry Gilliam recently did an interview with the Onion A/V Club, and you should read the whole thing, because he’s awesome, and what else are you going to read, Michael Phelps’ autobiography?  Anyway, he mentions that he’s still trying to get money for his Don Quixote movie, which now has Robert Duvall attached.  But it was also interesting to hear what he had to say about Avatar.

“Technically, it’s extraordinary work. And that’s where it sort of ends. We’ve seen the story before. We’ve seen so much of what’s been done there before, but I think he’s obviously moved the technology way ahead, to a point that who’s going to get the benefit from it is the real question. I think his system that he’s developed is obviously extraordinary, but you need these vast sums of money to create something like that. The thing that always amazes me about Cameron is how he uses the camera. I’ve always been amazed by that, ever since I first saw his films. And he continues to do it. It’s a dynamic that’s quite extraordinary, but as far as the ideas and everything else, nothing surprised me.”

“What he’s done is so difficult. And that deserves praise for something. I don’t know if it’s necessary, is my problem. I occasionally would pull the glasses off and say, “Did the depth mean that much to me?” And it didn’t. But it’s very lush work.” [source]

That’s right, he agrees with me, eat it.  He also had some thoughts on the new Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes:
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Jesus, I spent way too long trying to make that Photoshop work and it totally wasn’t worth it.  Kind of like your parents’ marriage.  Anyway, story is that Collider has the scoop that Terry Gilliam wants Robert Duvall to play Don Quixote in his famously cursed Don Quixote movie.  The film’s still in the process of securing financing, but it sounds like director and star are in agreement.  Meanwhile, Variety reports that Johnny Depp is in negotiations to play Pancho Villa in “Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman With Six Fingers.”

The Spanish-language biopic is to be shot partly in Mexico, where Villa — an early 20th-century bandit who became a guerilla fighter and a hero to the poor — is an iconic historical figure. Depp will act in Spanish, Serbian director Emir Kusturica said.  Depp and Kusturica collaborated previously on “Arizona Dream” in 1993.

The script is based on the biographical novel “The Friends of Pancho Villa,” in which author James Carlos Blake recounts how Villa and his compadres had a great time fighting and robbing the rich, but also dancing, partying and making love.

What a coincidence, that’s what I spend all my time doing!  At least, that’s what I pretend I’m doing while I make snarky blog posts and pet my cat.  *writes “rebel” on white v-neck in puffy paint*

Almost 10 years ago, Terry Gilliam tried to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, a cursed production that eventually shut down after delays caused by freak weather and the lead actor’s back problems. The only good thing to come out of it was Lost in La Mancha, a documentary about the experience.  But now Gilliam is set to try again.  Oh hey, did I mention his lead actor (Heath Ledger) overdosed on pills halfway through the filming of his last movie?

Gilliam is teaming up with Brit producer Jeremy Thomas to bring his long-cherished project to the bigscreen. Gilliam and screenwriter Tony Grisoni, who also wrote the first version, have rewritten and updated the script. The new film will revolve around a filmmaker who is charmed into joining Don Quixote’s eternal quest for his ladylove, becoming an unwitting Sancho Panza.

“I’m not so much a filmmaker as someone who gets possessed by an idea and it doesn’t leave me until I make the film,” Gilliam told Variety. “I commit myself to it so fully.”

Gilliam is also in talks with Johnny Depp, who had been set to star in the first ill-fated attempt as a modern-day ad exec who travels back in time and is mistaken for Sancho Panza by Don Quixote. Scheduling concerns are seen as the biggest obstacle to Depp’s participation this time. [Variety]

Johnny Depp is great and all, but do we really have to mention his name as a possible candidate for every goddamned role?  I think part of it is that “Johnny Depp” just sounds like a movie star’s name.  If his name was Henry Blakowski I guarantee he’d be cleaning the skidmarks out of Tom Arnold’s underpants right now.  Which is why I’m naming my son “Racecar Hairgel.”