Terry Gilliam has such a nightmare getting his own films made that he's decided to start helping other people instead. That, at least, is the case with Tim Ollive's 1884, which Gilliam will "godfather" as a creative advisor.
Ollive is an animator, artist and VFX man who's worked with Gilliam on all of his films since Life of Brian. 1884 has been gestating for a year or so, since a trailer / piece of test footage went online and the Peculiar Pictures website posted some details.
Set in, strangely enough, 1884, but supposedly made in 1848, "forty years before the birth of film", it's a steampunk retro-future adventure in which our hero Horatio Kitchengame, fresh from visiting the Moon and claiming it for the British Empire, undertakes his most perilous journey yet: to Europe.
Cue much boy's-own derring-do in "the murky world of Victorian foreign policy". It's a bit Dan Dare, a bit James Bond and a bit Jules Verne, and in its current form, it's endearingly wonky but deceptively sophisticated stuff. A mix of animation, puppetry, 2D and 3D CGI ("a sea of GIs" - see what they did there?) and live action, it takes place against a background of matte paintings, model sets and photographs from the Getty archive.
The budget for the feature version is $8m, which should guarantee improved quality to the original. Along with Gilliam, 1884 will be produced by Peculiar's John Needham and 2D3D, the studio behind Belleville Rendezvous. Needham says that Gilliam's involvement has brought with it some ex-Python voice artists, although he's declined to name names so far.
Gilliam himself says he liked the original 1884 short because "It's not slick and sleek CG work such as studios in LA produce. It looks crafted by an artisan, and the scale and design are spectacular."
Ollive, who co-wrote the screenplay with another frequent Gilliam cohort Dennis de Groot, made the trailer in his bathroom. "Finally," says Gilliam, "a bathroom has been put to proper use."