Terry Gilliam recently sat down with the BFI for a lengthy, career-spanning interview reflecting on his 50 years as a director. While the conversation covers his usual mix of biting humor, regrets, and wild tales, it's the closing section, a brief update on his long-gestating projects, that will pique the interest of Gilliam die-hards.
Most notably, “Carnival at the End of Days” — a mysterious fantasy project that was previously reported to be produced by Andrea Iervolino — appears to have parted ways with the embattled financier. Gilliam now claims the project is effectively free from any entanglements.
The film is free: I have signed no legal documents. If anybody wants to come on board, we’re willing and waiting. Somebody give me the money.
This shift may come as a relief, given Iervolino’s recent track record of projects either collapsing or getting stuck in limbo. It now seems Gilliam is openly seeking new backers for “Carnival,” though as always the case with any of his projects, nothing is guaranteed.
More surprising, perhaps, is the return of "The Defective Detective", a project Gilliam has been trying to make since the early '90s. The fantastical noir follows a detective who enters a surreal dream world through the imagination of a young girl — pure Gilliam territory.
Gilliam notes the script has long been stuck at Paramount:
It’s been lost those many years in the bowels of one particular studio, very hard to get out. But there’s a change in that studio. We’ll see. Where the studios have something they don’t really want to make, they want to make sure nobody else makes it. There’s so many scripts sitting there.
“The Defective Detective” has had a storied development history, with names like Nick Nolte, Nicolas Cage, and Bruce Willis attached at various points. Gilliam even said post-’Zero Theorem’ that he’d like to try with Matt Damon in the lead.
Script drafts from the mid-'90s, some of which have made the rounds among fans, reveal a rich, visually ambitious fantasy world. The catch? With the modest budgets Gilliam typically secures these days, pulling it off seems like a long shot.
I really hate to say this, but given the current state of the film industry, where original, high-concept projects are increasingly rare, especially from aging auteurs who require sizable budgets, it’s becoming more and more likely that Gilliam has directed his final film. As much as he remains creatively restless, the system no longer seems built to support someone like him.