TORONTO – Nearly two years ago, Terry Gilliam – an American born filmmaker who renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2006 to avoid double taxation – gave an interview at his Montone home in Umbria. While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about life in Italy and his next film, Gilliam mused about making a film in Italy, given his collaborations with Italians on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) and The Man who Killed Don Quixote (2018).
Gilliam is best known for his dystopian sci-fi film Brazil (1985), but also produced animated interludes for the iconic Monty Python show and films. He even co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). Known as a creative madman of sorts, Gilliam could never quite cozy up to Hollywood execs and their demands, preferring to tell stories on his own terms. And while talking to The Hollywood Reporter in 2023 he somewhat flippantly called out to Italian financiers: “I love the idea of making a film here in Italy, so who’s got the money in Italy? Come to me please”.
One Italian Producer/Financier heard Gilliam’s call. The ever-ambitious Andrea Iervolino (Ferrari, Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend) connected with the visionary filmmaker and the two are now collaborating on Gilliam‘s biblical comedy Carnival: At The End Of Days. The Italian entrepreneur will produce and help finance the film, which will reportedly star Johnny Depp as Satan and co-star the likes of Jeff Bridges, Jason Momoa and Adam Driver.
The plot according to Gilliam involves an end of days scenario in which “God, disgusted with what has become of humanity, decides to eliminate his creatures for good. Paradoxically, Satan is the only one standing in his way”. Set to begin shooting in April, Iervolino describes the film as, “a project that blends live-action aesthetics with an unprecedented amount of CGI (Computer-generated imagery). It is, without a doubt, one of the most expensive independent projects ever undertaken in cinematic history. However, I firmly believe it is a magnificent work of art that the world deserves to see.”
We’ll soon learn if the project finds the additional funding it needs as the pair are shopping the film to potential buyers at the current European Film Market in Berlin. Gilliam once joked that in completing his Don Quixote film, he’d outdone his idol Orson Welles. “I never reached his level, but I certainly managed to do something he [Welles] didn’t: Complete Don Quixote. It took me 30 years and, even if it might not seem so at first, I am a patient man”. Time will tell however how patient Iervolino and company are to make history’s “most expensive independent film” ever.
(Image of Terry Gilliam and Andrea Iervolino courtesy of Getty Images; Image of Johnny Depp and Jeff Bridges courtesy of MovieWeb)
Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix
