A few years ago, a famous french director did something close... He camouflaged his film by pretending his first assistant was the director. So the official director wasn't around when journalists visited etc., when someone exterior to the shoot asked, everybody on the crew played the game as if the assistant was the director. And then the film was unveiled as the new film of the famous director when it was shown at a festival.
I guess that's only achievable if you work on a small film...
Would Terry be as shrewd as that? He did say it was a temporary delay, and that the production hadn't been cancelled again. I think he might have been prepared for this eventuality, and had a plan B.
Even if he has a plan B, if he reschedules the problem is he might lose his actors who could be committed to other things (Adam Driver must be busy) and if he recast, he might lose the financing based on this particular cast etc. I'm not particularly optimist about this (anyway it's probably dead for a 2016 shoot).
You'll have to keep an eye on the announcements coming from the American Film Market this week to know if Adam Driver has any other projects for 2017... I just read that Leos Carax's new film was in pre-production and he was rumored to be part of that... We'll see.
If Terry Gilliam wants to catch back Adam Driver in 2017, I guess filming can only take place in january-february or in late summer. When autumn and winter come, Driver would have to travel the world to promote star wars so he won't be available. And if Gilliam doesn't manage to bring him back in 2017 it will surely be very difficult to have him in 2018 when the next star wars will start shooting.
