The Making of Quixote

[Donald McKinney]

It would be ironic if Netflix swooped in to save the day, as their films (including the final film from Orson Welles) aren't in Cannes this year due to the conflict between the streaming giant and the festival. If Amazon is still involved in some markets though, I don't think it would happen. Anyway, Netflix tends to give a more limited theatrical distribution, so I hope it's someone else. I live in NYC and I have Netflix so it wouldn't affect me if they did grab the film, but I'd rather see Quixote get as wide a theatrical distribution as possible.

While Amazon have had critical success and won awards. they've usually had to piggyback with other distributors for their work. Their first film as a solo distributor was Woody Allen's Wonder Wheel which should have been a great film for Amazon, unfortunately bad timing and the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the film not being that good anyways, (Vittorio Storaro's cinematography notwithstanding) killed it.

Netflix have made some great content, but they've always kept putting films in cinemas at an arms length. But, I think that'll change with Martin Scorsese's The Irishman, which currently costs $175 million and counting. Netflix famously saved the film after Paramount Pictures got cold feet over the rising costs, (even though they weren't directly involved in the financing), so they walked out the door. Enter Netflix, fearless and taking the biggest leap of faith in cinema for years. Good luck to them, but it looks like Scorsese's association with them will go beyond The Irishman, as he's directing the SCTV reunion for Netflix.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote will get American distribution, I don't think a big studio will pick it up, but maybe one of the middling ones will, where it'll get an audience and it'll be promoted well. Maybe not the likes of Fox Searchlight or Sony Pictures Classics, but maybe A24.

If you speak Spanish, here's a tweet by someone who saw a pre-preview of the film in Spain :
https://twitter.com/JoseLPINU/status/994859825615032321
Apparently the guy is not too enthused by the photography and thinks the Spanish flavor is a bit cliché (If I understand correctly) but finds the story is "fresh and very entertaining" and thought-provoking and that Adam Driver is great in the film.

I wonder if Gilliam toned down his usual quirks for this film, much like he did for Fisher King. We already know it won't be a special effects driven fantasy, though I'm guessing there will be more fantastical elements towards the climax of the film.

Yeah, this Quixote differs from the 2000 incarnation of Quixote. The clips from the film looks quite lavish, even though it was only made for €16 million, the 2000 incarnation was to have cost €32 million, but THAT version was to have been an all-singing, all-star take, almost on par scale wise with Baron Munchausen, but Terry revisited the script after getting the rights back, and saw it was a mistake, and reworked the concept and story. Making it more focused and intimate. Personally, I'd love to see Terry do a more intimate, emotional film like The Fisher King or even Twelve Monkeys again, he showed great confidence with those films.