Lost (Then Found) In La Mancha...

Here's a snippet for film fans. Terry Gilliam announced a couple of years ago that he would be attempting to reshoot The Man Who Killed Don Quixote and now it would appear that things are being stepped up, as he announced in Cannes that Ewan MacGregor would be taking the role of Toby (a modern businessman who finds himself in 17th-century Spain and mistaken for Sancho Panza by the legendary Don) from Johnny Depp who is unable to work with Gilliam once more due to scheduling conflicts. Robert Duvall takes over from Jean Rochefort as the titular would-be knight hero.

The film, in which a advertising executive finds himself transported to the 17th century where he becomes embroiled in the misadventures of the legendary literary figure, has of course been attempted once before, when a unseasonable Spanish storm laid waste to the set, bringing an end to filming in 1999, all famously chronicled in the documentary Lost in La Mancha.

The documentary went on to enjoy a good deal of success in its own right. Drawing parallels between Gilliam and Quixote himself, it also alludes to the curse of 'The Man of La Mancha' referencing how even Orson Welles failed to bring his Don Quixote to fruition, not to mention the curse of Gilliam's movies themselves. While Gilliam is a visionary, an auteur, he has suffered some rotten bad luck in the production of several of his films.

British Academy Fellow Gilliam has claimed that the infamous storm 'saved his ass' as the film was almost certain to run dramatically over-budget and I'm not sure that he even need make the movie. Lost in La Mancha is all the more dramatic for the fact that it did end in total tragedy and disaster, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is its Nation's Pride or The Orchid Thief. That said, Gilliam never fails to deliver a unique visual experience and should production avoid any rain dances, then The Man Who Killed Don Quixote could well be genius.