After 30 years, Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote will finally be out in theatres. It’s showing at MIFF 2018. There were so many production issues that the issues themselves produced their own film, Lost in La Mancha. Via Study Break:
Terry Gilliam’s film “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” was finally finished after almost 30 years of mishaps, including chaotic weather and the declining health of Jean Rochefort, the Don Quixote for Gilliam’s original movie attempt.
There was even a whole making-of documentary called “Lost in La Mancha” in 2002 about that disastrous first attempt if you would like to watch the misfortunes up close. More recently, former producer Paulo Branco filed a lawsuit against Gilliam because Gilliam sold him the rights to the script back in 2016 and proceeded without Branco’s permission.
Despite the pending lawsuit, the 2018 Cannes Film Festival went ahead with their original plan to air the film at the end of their festival, and the film received a 10-minute standing ovation. But Amazon, who was going to distribute the movie to American audiences, backed out after Branco’s lawsuit, and a French court ruled that Gilliam will have to pay $11,600 in reparations to Branco.
Is Gilliam’s film, which is loosely based off Miguel de Cervantes’s “El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de La Mancha,” worth 30 years of hassle, including now the pain of finding an American company to distribute the movie?