Well, dang.
Okay, this just makes me sad. From TLC today:
Terry Gilliam: I was the perfect guy to do Harry Potter
Terry Gilliam is interviewed in the September 2, 2005 issue of Entertainment Weekly, and mentions projects that have passed, and those that he's developed and worked on. Interviewer Gillian Flynn noted that JK Rowling wanted Gilliam for the Harry Potter films, and Gilliam replied:
I was reading the script as I was flying to Los Angeles for the [Warner Bros] meeting and thought, "Oh, she's seen Time Bandits, she's seen Monty Python." You know you're not going to get the job. It's just to keep her happy - due diligence. The terrible thing about it was during the course of the meeting, I started getting enthusiastic - I was even getting myself excited. I remember leaving the meeting, getting in my car and driving for about two hours along Mulholland Drive just so angry I'd allowed myself to get excited about it. I mean, Chris Columbus' versions are terrible. Just dull. Pedestrian. But I thought Alfonso Cuaron did a great job with the last one. I thought, Yeah, you got really close to it.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, Terry Gilliam is probably my top pick to direct Movies 6 or 7. I knew he'd been turned down for the role at the start, but I was hoping that was based solely on Chris Columbus' desire to direct the first two (the narcissist!). But if Gilliam is bashing Columbus this publically, he obviously believes he has no chance at all of directing the final two. And that blows.
Josh had warned me from way early on that WB was unlikely to ever hire Gilliam to direct something this big after the screw up with Don Quixote:
From IMDB: "He started to direct "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" in 2001 (in Spain) with Johnny Depp, Vanessa Paradis and Jean Rochefort but the shooting was unfortunately stopped a couple of days after it started because of Jean Rochefort's health problems (he couldn't ride a horse any more). But Terry Gilliam said that he won't give up and that he will try again later because he dreams about making this movie!"
Apparently the studio lost millions on that one and blamed Gilliam for it. In addition, he's never been much of a Hollywood insider. And anyone who makes comments like these is unlikely to have made a lot of friends at WB or with the HP producers:
So, yeah, if even JKR's wishes to have Gilliam be the director couldn't pull the right strings, then I can see why he's so cynical now about it, particularly if he really was in love with the stories. It's such a shame, though! So many fans are just crying out for a director who really, really loves the stories from the start, as opposed to all these people who don't read any of the books at all till they're offered the directing jobs. But reading between the lines, I have a feeling Gilliam's personality and directing style were way too out-there for the traditional money-makers at WB. And yet, if ever there was a franchise that could afford to be daring, knowing they already have a guaranteed audience, this is it. Blech.
Terry Gilliam: I was the perfect guy to do Harry Potter
Terry Gilliam is interviewed in the September 2, 2005 issue of Entertainment Weekly, and mentions projects that have passed, and those that he's developed and worked on. Interviewer Gillian Flynn noted that JK Rowling wanted Gilliam for the Harry Potter films, and Gilliam replied:
I was reading the script as I was flying to Los Angeles for the [Warner Bros] meeting and thought, "Oh, she's seen Time Bandits, she's seen Monty Python." You know you're not going to get the job. It's just to keep her happy - due diligence. The terrible thing about it was during the course of the meeting, I started getting enthusiastic - I was even getting myself excited. I remember leaving the meeting, getting in my car and driving for about two hours along Mulholland Drive just so angry I'd allowed myself to get excited about it. I mean, Chris Columbus' versions are terrible. Just dull. Pedestrian. But I thought Alfonso Cuaron did a great job with the last one. I thought, Yeah, you got really close to it.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, Terry Gilliam is probably my top pick to direct Movies 6 or 7. I knew he'd been turned down for the role at the start, but I was hoping that was based solely on Chris Columbus' desire to direct the first two (the narcissist!). But if Gilliam is bashing Columbus this publically, he obviously believes he has no chance at all of directing the final two. And that blows.
Josh had warned me from way early on that WB was unlikely to ever hire Gilliam to direct something this big after the screw up with Don Quixote:
From IMDB: "He started to direct "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" in 2001 (in Spain) with Johnny Depp, Vanessa Paradis and Jean Rochefort but the shooting was unfortunately stopped a couple of days after it started because of Jean Rochefort's health problems (he couldn't ride a horse any more). But Terry Gilliam said that he won't give up and that he will try again later because he dreams about making this movie!"
Apparently the studio lost millions on that one and blamed Gilliam for it. In addition, he's never been much of a Hollywood insider. And anyone who makes comments like these is unlikely to have made a lot of friends at WB or with the HP producers:
- (on future use of CGI in his films) "Nooo! Leave that to George Lucas, he' s really mastered the CGI acting. That scares me! I hate it! Everybody is so pleased and excited by it. Animation is animation. Animation is great. But it's when you're now taking what should be films full of people, living thinking, breathing, flawed creatures and you're controlling every moment of that, it's just death to me. It's death to cinema, I can't watch those Star Wars films, they're dead things."
- "Whether I like it or not, or whether anybody else does, when I start a film I have a few ideas. And as you're getting into it, you think, 'Ooh, there's another idea,' and you're shooting some more and, 'Oh, here's another thing. Let's do that.' I'm always changing and adding. That's just the way my mind works."
- "People in Hollywood are not showmen, they're maintenance men, pandering to what they think their audiences want."
- "I think I've got a certain talent and I don't know how to defend it. So I end up defending it more vociferously than it may need, but I always feel under threat. It's a basic in-built paranoia. When people start interfering, I go a little bit crazy."
- "Hollywood is run by small-minded people who like chopping the legs off creative people. All they want to do is say no."
So, yeah, if even JKR's wishes to have Gilliam be the director couldn't pull the right strings, then I can see why he's so cynical now about it, particularly if he really was in love with the stories. It's such a shame, though! So many fans are just crying out for a director who really, really loves the stories from the start, as opposed to all these people who don't read any of the books at all till they're offered the directing jobs. But reading between the lines, I have a feeling Gilliam's personality and directing style were way too out-there for the traditional money-makers at WB. And yet, if ever there was a franchise that could afford to be daring, knowing they already have a guaranteed audience, this is it. Blech.