To be honest it’s not really that surprising, but Terry Gilliam has confirmed that he’s scouting for new actors to replace Johnny Depp in his upcoming Who Killed Don Quixote. In case you don’t know the story, Gilliams’s take on the classic Cervantes tale went into production a few years ago, whith Depp onboard, but after a series of on-set disasaters, including storms destroying the sets and the man playing Don Quixote getting ill, the whole things was abandoned. The whole sorry tale was documented in the excellent documentary Lost In La Mancha.
However Gilliam never gave up hope of actually making the movie and he’s now got the money to make his dream come true, but unfortunately he won’t have Depp. Gilliam told The Independent, “I can now honestly say that I’m not working with Johnny on Don Quixote. He’s booked himself up on a lot of other films… I want to shoot Don Quixote next year. He said he’s not available and we have both agreed that I’m going to die soon, so it would be nice to get this film under my belt.”
Depp’s got Pirates 4, The Lone Ranger and Dark Shadows lined up over the next year or so, which would make it difficult to squeeze in Gilliam’s quixotic tale. Let’s hope Gilliam finds a suitable replacement.