Good news! We bumped into the great Terry Gilliam last night at a party in Cannes for the Doha Film Institute, and he revealed to us exclusively that Ewan McGregor has joined the cast of his long-delayed film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.
McGregor will take on the role that Johnny Depp had been set to play in the original, aborted version back in 2000. Depp had still been attached to the role for this version, but with Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 eating into his schedule, and a September start date looming for The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, Gilliam has clearly decided to go with McGregor instead.
McGregor will play, if the current version remains faithful to the original attempt, a 21st century advertising executive who travels back in time to 17th century Spain, where he meets Don Quixote and becomes involved in adventures with him. Robert Duvall has been on board the revamped film, as Quixote, for some time, replacing Jean Rochefort. But the addition of McGregor is brand new.
"Robert Duvall is one of the greats, no question - and he can ride a horse!" laughed Gilliam. "And Ewan has gotten better over the years. He was wonderful in The Ghost. There's a lot of colours to Ewan that he's not been showing recently and it's time for him to show them again. He's got a great sense of humour and he's a wonderful actor. He's wonderfully boyish and can be charming - when he flashes a smile, everybody melts. He wields it like a nuclear bomb!"
Watch Terry Gilliam discuss the casting in our daily Cannes video diary below (jump to about 3.42).
Gilliam also revealed that the budget of the movie will be around the $20 million mark, a far cry from the $35 million he had to play with in 2000.
We wish him all the best with this new version. Fingers crossed!