Things are looking up for Terry Gilliam‘s ill-fated take on Don Quixote: an official photo released yesterday (February 21) shows its two stars Jonathan Pryce and Adam Driver in character as the elderly knight and his sidekick Sancho Panza.
Well, not quite. With Brazil director and ex-Python Terry at the helm, we shouldn’t expect anything so straightforward as a faithful adaptation of Miguel Cervantes‘ epic novel.
In fact, Jonathan plays a deluded old man who’s convinced he is Don Quixote, and who mistakes Toby (Adam), a modern-day advertising executive, for his faithful sidekick. The pair embark on a bizarre journey, jumping back and forth in time between the 21st and magical 17th centuries.
Yeah, that sounds much more like it. Here they are riding through La Mancha:
around european film market i've got the first official picture from terry gilliam's quixote with adam driver and jonathan pryce #themanwhokilleddonquixote #Berlinale #TerryGilliam pic.twitter.com/5IOmapTqSc
— Andrea Corsini (@andreamtcorsini) February 21, 2018
Jonathan is not the first actor to get up in the saddle. Big names such as Ewan McGregor, Robert Duvall, Jack O’Connell, Michael Palin, and John Hurt have all been attached to the film at some point, and we’ve even seen Jean Rochefort in the lead role alongside Johnny Depp in Lost in La Mancha, a 2002 behind-the-scenes film documenting Terry’s previous attempt to get the film made.
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote finally looks set to see the light of day, after 18 years, plenty of production mishaps, and even acts of God getting in the way. Many critics now expect it to premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in May.
So, fingers crossed. Nobody. Jinx. Anything.
Do you think Jonathan and Adam look the part?
