Sancho Panza might become Hollywood’s next staggering, slurring, Rolling Stones-inspired culture hero, with news coming today that Disney is developing its own movie based on Miguel Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Variety reports that the media conglomerate has tapped Hunger Games writer Billy Ray to build a script out of Cervantes’ 1605 novel of delusional chivalry, with an eye toward giving it a “Pirates of the Caribbean vibe” and the possibility of creating a multi-movie franchise.
Meanwhile, we can only imagine what this news will do to Terry Gilliam, who’s now spent roughly a third of his life trying to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, despite every setback conceivable by man or god. Maybe it’ll be liberating, freeing Gilliam from the cursed project that’s consumed so much of his professional life. Or maybe the hypothetical sight of his old friend Johnny Depp swanning around with a windmill on his hat, pretending to fight giants, will be what finally does him in. We’ll know more, presumably, as Don Quixote gets closer to actual production.