Many forget just how important and vital a cinematic voice Terry Gilliam was during his peak years, especially when he was battling Universal for the final cut of his 1985 masterpiece “Brazil.”
In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Gilliam says his upcoming stage revival of “Into the Woods” will probably be his last creative act. That’s quite the statement from a man who has persistently pursued one passion project after another for nearly four decades.
It's behind a paywall, but our dear reader Jerome sent us the article. And yet, Gilliam still mentions an ambitious film project that Gilliam sees as his last true movie statement, he knows funding will be hard to get, but he’s not giving up. Per The Telegraph:
“Fans can take heart from the tantalising thought that he might yet have one last movie up his sleeve. “I’ve written one and we’ll see,” he says, as he shuffles out. “It’s about God deciding to destroy humanity for f---ing up his beautiful garden and only one person is trying to save humanity – Satan, because without humanity he doesn’t have a job!”"
It was just this April that Gilliam mentioned several times what he wanted his next movie to be. According to Gilliam, the premise would involve God wanting to wipe out humanity, because he's so disappointed by what has gone down on planet earth, only for Satan to convince God to create a new Adam & Eve to create a new improved humanity.
Gilliam was said to be working with a "young screenwriter”and that the script was nearly finished. Add in the fact that in a recent French interview he revealed that the budget for this film would be around $30 million dollars and you have the makings of a possible new film. However, Gilliam getting that kind of dough from a major studio is highly unlikely, that’s why he’s looking at potential European backers.
Bless Gilliam's rebellious heart, to even think of such an out-there premise like this one requires a filmmaker as oddly eccentric (and visionary) as him. The director of such classics as "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," "Brazil," "12 Monkeys," and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" knows American producers have basically given up on bank-rolling such risk-taking stories.
As it stands, the last film Gilliam released was 2018’s underrated “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,” which premiered at Cannes.