Warner Bros. Making Big Budget 'Don Quixote'

Producer Joel Silver has just given Terry Gilliam the finger. Gilliam tried to make a Don Quixote film a decade ago and now that The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is finally back on track, here comes Hollywood with its own proposed big budget blockbuster version of the classic story. Writes Pajiba:

"Their intention is clear. They’re going to muck up the original story completely. It’s being described as a Pirates of Caribbean-style swashbuckling version of a story in which we discover that Don Quixote isn’t crazy and that there is, in fact, a fantasy world. Don’z gonna get him some windmill, folks."

The idea is to pull off a Sherlock Holmes reinvention of Cervantes' story, ratcheting up the action and beginning a possible franchise, and I guess there's room for that. They'll certainly dumb it down a bit because mass audiences like it that way, but it should have more luck getting made than Gilliam's off-beat adaptation. And let's be clear about this: Neither one of these films is sticking exactly to the original story, so if you're pissed that one is changing things up to make money, don't forget the other one is, too, if for more artistic reasons, presumably. Pajiba reports that Warner Bros. is moving its version of Don Quixote pretty quickly, so it'll be interesting to see which one of these shows up first.

Comments

[knives]

That's the most disgusting movie related thing I've heard in awhile. You say so yourself that the big differences in the changes between this and Gilliam's is money V. artistry. Gilliam gets a pass on changes because he, at least in theory, wants to say new and personal while this is just perverse. Why even bother? I doubt too much of their audience has heard of Don Quixote. Couldn't they just make him a generic knight instead?
I say Ni to this.

[Get The Big Picture]

I agree about the audience being pretty oblivious to the source material. I've made that argument about going generic before, too, with other start-ups like this. But Warners is pretty invested in this stuff now with Sherlock and Three Musketeers.

[chad]

ok i get people dont know don quixote but putting it in a fatasy world then its not don quixote its a original story, just let it be original its not like your going to be going off name recognition, ll your gonna do is piss of the purists

[J.Bradley]

Both sound, and should look, like two very different approaches to the source. If Gilliam has the script ready, and he should after ten years, then the smaller size of the production could get him finished first. Of course Warner's version should get a bigger distribution whenever it's released. Just another bad break that Gilliam's movies always get.

[scott]

another evisceration of a classic novel, brilliant, surprised Tim Burton's not involved.