Trivia / The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Some of the Spanish actors signed up either wanting to work with Gilliam and/or knowing they would enjoy the experience of making such a crazy film, and all were unanimous they really did.
• Box Office Bomb: The film cost €16 million to produce (about $18 million) and grossed about $1 million worldwide.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Jonathan Pryce was already set to appear in the 2000 version (Lost in La Mancha) in a supporting role. He ended up playing Javier/Don Quixote.
• Channel Hop: Shortly before the Cannes premiere, Amazon Studios dropped out in distributing the film in the U.S. (they still have credit as they produced the movie as well). Near the end of 2018, indie distributor Screen Media Films picked up the film for its limited US release.
• Dawson Casting: Joana Ribeiro playing Angelica when she was 15 in Toby's flashbacks. Ribeiro was 25 during the filming.
• Doing It for the Art: About the actors, Gilliam said "Everyone involved, from the cast to the crew, are all working their asses off for a fraction of what they would normally be paid, because they just want to see this thing done."
• Fake Mixed Race: Óscar Jaenada is Spanish, only not a Spanish gypsy. This is actually a popular belief even in Spain, because Jaenada really does look like a gypsy and had his breakout role playing one (that of popular flamenco singer Camarón de la Isla in his 2005 biopic film).
• Fake Nationality:
  • Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce as the Spanish Javier/Quixote.
  • Joana Ribeiro is Portuguese yet plays a Spanish woman.
  • Spanish actor Jordi Mollà as the Russian oligarch Alexei Miiskin.
• In Memoriam: The film is dedicated to the memory of two actors who were set to play Javier/Quixote but ultimately couldn't, Jean Rochefort (Lost in La Mancha) and John Hurt. Both passed away in 2017.
• International Coproduction: The movie was funded by British, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Belgian production companies.
• Life Imitates Art: One of the great artistic ironies of the modern age, many Gilliam fans have noted, is the story of how in his never-ending quest to finish this film, Gilliam has become perhaps the quintessential Hollywood Windmill Crusader. Until he finished it.
• No Export for You: Played straight at first but then averted. Amazon Studios was to be releasing it in America, but backed out shortly before the Cannes premiere. IMDb claimed A24 was distributing it there, but no sources were given. As Screen Media Films is now the film's new distributor, that speculation turned out to be bunk.
• The Other Marty: A rather unusual case due to the years it took to make this film. Back in 2000, filming started with Jean Rochefort and Johnny Depp in the main roles, but the production was doomed. The final version that was completed in 2017 stars Jonathan Pryce and Adam Driver.
• The Production Curse: The film's early production was so plagued with problems that it was shut down permanently after six days of filming. Watching it all unfold in Lost in La Mancha is pretty heartbreaking.
• Production Posse: Jonathan Pryce worked with Gilliam on Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and The Brothers Grimm.
• Reality Subtext: A seemingly futile and endlessly troubled decades-long quest to make this film. It's almost quixotic.
• Saved from Development Hell: Terry Gilliam spent the best part of three decades trying to get the film made:
  • Gilliam first read Don Quixote in 1989 and immediately started conceptualizing. In 1990, he signed a deal with Phoenix Pictures to make the film in 1990 under Don Quixote. Sean Connery was in talks to star as Quixote, but Gilliam disliked the idea because "Quixote is air and Sean is earth". Nigel Hawthorne and Danny DeVito were also in talks to star as Quixote and Panza respectively. However, Gilliam ultimately decided that the budget offered him was too low and dropped out to focus on The Defective Detective, another film he ultimately failed to make. Phoenix Pictures chose Fred Schepisi to replace Gilliam, with John Cleese as Quixote and Robin Williams as Panza, and Steven Haft, Quincy Jones and David Salzman as producers. This version would have been based on an old screenplay by Waldo Salt. However, it was officially cancelled in 1997.
    Gilliam: The years I wasted on this one! I was so frustrated with Hollywood, I went after European money, needing $20 million. And they said, 'You're on.' But I found out I needed more money. [...] That really hurts, that I let a project I'm convinced I'm the best director on the planet to do, slip by.
  • In 1998, Gilliam resumed working on the film with co-writer Tony Grisoni, giving it the new name The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. He announced it as his next project at the UK premier of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Fed up with Hollywood wanting control of his films, he decided to make the film in Europe instead, which was "one big monstrous problem". Filming was to take place in Spain and throughout Europe and was set to have been one of the biggest continental European films ever made. The cast included Jean Rochefort as Quixote, Johnny Depp as Toby, his then-girlfriend Vanessa Paradis as Dulcinea del Toboso, Miranda Richardson, Ian Holm, Christopher Eccleston, Rossy de Palma, Jonathan Pryce and Sally Phillips. Filming started in September 2000, with Nicola Pecorini as cinematographer and following a series of disasters (covered in the documentary Lost in La Mancha), it was cancelled in November of that year.
  • Since 2003, Gilliam kept trying to restart production, but to no avail. His first new attempt, six months after the release of Lost in La Mancha, was quickly turned down. In 2005, he expressed an interest in casting Gérard Depardieu as Quixote. In the meantime, Gilliam made other films, freely admitting that every film he made since was because he couldn't make his dream project.
  • In 2006, Gilliam announced that the rights issues between the studio and the financiers had been settled and that he planned to start the film again. In 2008, Gilliam started preliminary work on the new version. In 2009, Robert Duvall revealed that he had been cast as Quixote, with Depp still attached as his co-star with shooting to start in early 2010, until the latter dropped out due to a busy schedule. In May that year, it was announced that Ewan McGregor was to replace Depp. Pre-production began in 2009. However, Gilliam revealed in September that year that the funding had collapsed a month and half earlier and as a result shooting was delayed. By 2012, Duvall was still attatched, but McGregor wasn't. In 2013, while promoting The Zero Theorem at the Venice Film Festival, Gilliam told Variety, "I'm going to try to do it again, [...] We'll see if it happens. I just want to make it and get rid of it. Get it out of my life".
  • Production started again in 2014, with filming to take place in the Canary Islands and John Hurt playing the lead role. Then production was delayed again when Hurt was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2015 (later dying in 2017), prompting Michael Palin to step in to replace him, with Adam Driver and Olga Kurylenko as his co-stars.
  • In 2016, Gilliam was introduced to Portuguese producer Paulo Branco at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival. Branco promised that he would obtain the needed budget by September, a few weeks before they would start the eleven weeks-long shoot. However, following numerous conflicts with Branco, production was suspended in October of that year.
  • Gilliam announced in 2017 that filming would actually start with new producers and Jonathan Pryce replacing Palin in the lead role. It was finally finished in November of that year.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: As if the infamous Troubled Production on this movie wasn't already a strong contender for the biggest Overly Long Gag in film history, Terry Gilliam was engaged in a vicious rights dispute with producer Paulo Branco threatening to halt the film's release. Branco claimed that the movie is "illegal" and Gilliam had no right to make it without Branco's help. Gilliam won, eventually, but he does now owe Branco €10,000 in damages due to the contract between the two having been terminated improperly.
• Short Run in Peru: The movie was first theatrically released in France in May 2018. Other countries followed until the end of 2018, with the US release not commencing until April 2019 in a limited capacity.
• Trolling Creator: Production finally finished on June 4, 2017. A few days later, Gilliam jokingly posted on Facebook that he had accidentally deleted the film.
• Troubled Production: Although its pre-production began in 1998, the film remained incomplete for nearly twenty years thanks to a maelstrom of difficulties including the logistics of filming near a NATO bombing range in Spain, the destruction of sets by a flash flood, the illness of the lead actor and the withdrawal of other stars due to other projects, to name just a few. Its problems are documented in the 2002 documentary Lost in La Mancha. After many years of trying to get the film back in production, filming finally wrapped up in 2017. And then, just as it was ready for release in 2018, Gilliam was hit with a lawsuit by producer Paul Branco. Branco was originally supposed to produce the film through his company Alfalma Films, but couldn't secure funds in time. Fortunately, it still premiered as the closing film of the Cannes Film Festival and got released in France on the same day. Unfortunately, Amazon Studios, who funded much of the production, pulled out of distributing it in the US. It was later reported that Gilliam lost the court case with Branco and no longer controled the film. It was later clarified that Gilliam still owned the rights as he did not shoot a frame under Branco's company, but he still had to pay a settlement as he did not terminate his deal properly.
• What Could Have Been: The film was rewritten after a decade or two. It was originally supposed to be a genuine Time Travel story in which Toby would be a marketing executive that got sent back to Don Quixote's time. However, Gilliam and scriptwriter Tony Grisoni instead went for a big costumed party in the 21st century, with Javier/Quixote and Toby (now a filmmaker) having hallucinations set in the past.

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