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Terry Gilliam "Quite Tired" of Don Quixote; Reveals Details About How Andrew Garfield is Approaching The Amazing Spider-Man

Monty Python founding member and auteur Terry Gilliam's first attempt to make a movie based on Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote ended in disaster shortly after going into production in 2000, as chronicled in the documentary Lost in La Mancha. Gilliam moved on to other projects in the years that followed, but announced plans to reignite The Man Who Killed Don Quixote in 2008, minus original cast members Jean Rochefort as Don Quixote and Johnny Depp as Sancho Panza.

Unlike his first attempt, which faltered and ultimately failed while actually in production, Gilliam has been hitting roadblocks and obstacles with his second attempt while still in preproduction. He has been in talks with Robert Duvall to play Don Quixote, but has had little luck securing his Sancho Panza — or, more accurately, his faux Sancho Panza, since the story revolves around a 21st-century advertising executive who travels back in time and meets Don Quixote, who mistakes him for Sancho Panza. In a recent interview with Vulture, Gilliam revealed that most of his current problems with the movie are related to money and that, though The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is "the best script" that he has, the lack of progress has made him "actually quite tired of the whole thing."

We had almost all of [the money] together last year and then it fizzed out. What’s happening with money is there’s a number that’s the wrong number, and we’re at that number — $25 million, that’s just the wrong number. But it’ll work out. We just keep looking at different places to shoot, checking out Argentina, see if that’s less money. I don’t think in the States. I think most of the money is going to come from elsewhere. They want to give people $200 million to make the same film. Or they give them $5 million to do something interesting. ... Everything now, with the kind of money I’m talking about, is about who’s the star. That’s the problem. And Duvall is a great actor, but he’s not there for that kind of money, so you’re looking for other combinations. Strange enough, I’m actually quite tired of the whole thing. It’s been going on for so long, there’s a side of me that’s like, "F*ck this." Except it’s still the best script that I’ve got.

Gilliam has long been a fan of comic books and once had aspirations to direct a comic book movie, but he told Vulture that the current glut of such movies has turned him off from making one.

What’s so funny is because of growing up with comics, and always wanting to do that kind of movie, I have no interest in them at all now. That’s what I wanted to do, and now everyone else is doing them, so I don’t do them. I don’t even go now. I see the trailers, and I think, I’ve seen that trailer for about 20 years now! The same shots, the same dilemma — what are we doing here? Who’s going to make the leap that makes it different? And strangely, the ones that do are animated films. I saw Rango on the way over here, and it was wonderful. It was really funny! I think what’s happened is, they all kind of do the same thing. And aren’t they running out of good comic-book characters? When they run out of Marvel characters, will they be hitting up Neil Gaiman’s characters? Or will comic books be burned out by then, as films? I think Chris Nolan gets comic books. His Batman stuff is really good.

Gilliam may not want to direct a comic book movie, but it was his casting of Andrew Garfield in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus that paved the way for the young British actor to play the title role in director Marc Webb's Spider-Man franchise reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man. Gilliam has been keeping in touch with the young actor and revealed the interesting way in which Garfield plans to embody a teenager with the proportionate strength of a spider.

Andy’s doing great! He’s doing Spider-Man. So I’m hoping now Spider-Man will make him a huge star, and then when I put him in my next film, I’ll get the money! You wait long enough, it works out that way. ... And I think Andrew is going to make a good Spidey. It’s really good, because he’s approaching it physically. I was just talking to him, and he talked about this movement, imagining that you have these other legs — eight legs, so four more legs. There’s this delay. I don’t know if he’s still going to do it, but it’s fantastic.