Terry Gilliam's ‘Carnival at the End of Days' to Star Johnny Depp, Adam Driver, Jeff Bridges and Jason Momoa

Terry Gilliam has had such a hard time trying to fund his last few projects that he’s hinted about retirement. However, back in April, fansite Gilliam Dreams reported that the director was set to direct a new, maybe final, film, titled “The Carnival at the End of Days.”

We a MAJOR update about this film. Gilliam has found funding for this next passion project of his. We already know that Johnny Depp will play Satan in ‘Carnival at the End of Days,’ but we can now add Jeff Bridges, Adam Driver and Jason Momoa (via Premiere).

Gilliam says that a January 2025 production start is being eyed for ‘Carnival.’

We are trying to determine exactly when and where it will be done. For the moment, filming is scheduled for next January. We'll see. And I have a pretty good cast […] now we need a woman to complete casting. And it's going to be complicated, because it has to be realistic. And it's going to be very expensive! We'll see what happens, but it’s a good script. It will be very funny for those who like to be offended.

Depp’s inclusion opened up endless possibilities for Gilliam to actually get European funding for this film — Depp is still a very big name in Europe. In a recent French interview, Gilliam revealed that the budget for this film would be around $30 million dollars. Here’s Gilliam describing the plot of ‘Carnival’:

This is a simple tale of God wiping out humanity for fucking up his beautiful garden Earth. There’s only one character who’s trying to save humanity and that’s Satan, because without humanity he’s lost his job and he’s an eternal character and so to live without a job is terrible. So he finds some young people and he tries to convince God that these young people are the new Adam and Eve. God still gets to wipe out humanity. It’s a comedy.

Gilliam already spoke about this project last September in this interview. He mentioned working with a "young screenwriter” on the script and that final draft had, more or less, been completed. That screenwriter might actually be Christopher Brett Bailey, 33.

The last time Gilliam directed a feature was 2018’s “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,” a film he was trying to make for more than two decades. It came and went without much excitement, although I thought it was his, de facto, best film since the late ‘90s.

The lack of commercial success on ‘Don Quixote’ is essentially the reason why Gilliam couldn’t find funding for his ensuing projects. His films of the last 25 years have been both critical and commercial misfires.

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.” He’s given us other great films over the years, including “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and “12 Monkeys.”