Fear and loathing in La Mancha

Director Terry Gilliam and Johnny Depp may team up once more for "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote."

Depp and Gilliam previously collaborated on 1998's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

After "Fear and Loathing," the two tried making "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote," a story about a modern-day ad man who goes back in time and meets the mythical madman Don Quixote.

The production was plagued by natural disasters and Jean Rochefort, who was cast as Don Quixote, was put out of commission by a bad back injury. This, after Rochefort spent seven months learning to speak English for the role. The disastrous shoot and the subsequent legal battles were detailed in the 2002 documentary, "Lost in La Mancha."

According to the "Sydney Morning Herald" newspaper, Gilliam and Depp may soon be back in the saddle.

"I've spent the last five years trying to get the rights to the script back," Gilliam reportedly said. "We're very close to getting them and then we'll make the film again."

I hope they can do it this time.

As the uncredited journalist behind the "SMH" piece writes, "Gilliam's films are many things — imaginative, inventive, visually intense, and sometimes chaotic and bewildering — but they are rarely mediocre."

See my April 26 blog entry, (or the Leader print edition) tomorrow for a review of Gilliam's "12 Monkeys."

(Jorge Sosa is a staff writer for the Hutchinson Leader. He can be reached at sosa@hutchinsonleader.com)