Disney's The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha

[Walts Ghost]

Disney Developing Live-Action ‘Don Quixote’ Movie

Somebody brace Terry Gilliam for impact. Hot on the heels of yet another delay for Gilliam’s well-chronicled, eternally troubled passion project The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, news has surfaced that Disney is headed on a quest to La Mancha of their own with a live-action Don Quixote film.

The studio is developing an adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra‘s classic 1605 novel with producers Gordon Gray (Million Dollar Arm, Secretariat) and Billy Ray. Ray, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Captain Phillips and The Hunger Games will also pen the script.

Fully titled The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, Don follows Alonso Quixana, an older man in the Spanish countryside obsessed with tales of chivalry who loses his grasp on reality, refashions himself in the image of a valiant knight by the name of Don Quixote, and sets off “tilting at windmills” in search of justice.

THR reports that the plan is to reenvision Don Quixote with a tone that “recalls the madcap and fantastical nature” of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. That seems a fine comparison since those stories also follow an affable and courageous semi-madman in the form of Johnny Depp‘s Jack Sparrow, combining swashbuckling swordplay with the supernatural and fantastical.

In addition to Gilliam’s famously beleaguered project, Don Quixote has hit the big screen a couple times. Most notably with the 2002 TV movie that starred John Lithgow and Bob Hoskins and the 2015 adaptation Don Quixote: The Ingenious Man of La Mancha that premiered at Palm Springs International Film Festival. While it may feel like a bit of a harsh punchline that a major motion studio is putting the wheels in motion on this just as Gilliam’s long-running project suffers another blow, Gilliam has gone through hell and high water to get his version made, so I doubt a little studio competition will deter him. As for Disney, this is the latest live-action fantasy project in their rapidly expanding lineup.

[Foggy]

**** Disney if this actually gets made. They have Gilliam right there, right there, and they kick him while he's down.

[Coenskubrick]

Wish they would do it 2d animated. Not sure whether or not to be excited for this. Their live action efforts have mostly been crap but then again most of them have been primarily playing on recognition of the movies they were remakes off and since there is no Disney Don Quixote to remake it may not have the same kind of problems.

[cinemaphile]

I would rather see Disney's vision of this than Gilliam's anyway. The time has past. Someone else gets to make the story now.
His was already not entirely about Quixote himself, focusing on a time-travelling ad exec anyway. Then in the newest revision, to cut budget and try to get it going, he has further changed and chopped his ideas. I really no longer care about Gilliam's.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by cinemaphile

I would rather see Disney's vision of this than Gilliam's anyway. The time has past. Someone else gets to make the story now.
His was already not entirely about Quixote himself, focusing on a time-travelling ad exec anyway. Then in the newest revision, to cut budget and try to get it going, he has further changed and chopped his ideas. I really no longer care about Gilliam's.

I think it's more the case they could actually help the guy out and do his version considering it's there ready for the funding.

[cinemaphile]

Originally Posted by Foggy

I think it's more the case they could actually help the guy out and do his version considering it's there ready for the funding.

But I'm no longer interested in his version. I'd rather see this one.

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[robgmun]

I didn't know Gilliam was still trying to get this made, i thought he gave up after the events of Lost in La Mancha, at least it gave us a cracking documentary film