GILLIAM TO RESUSCITATE “DON QUIXOTE” FILM WITH EWAN MCGREGOR

Terry Gilliam’s seemingly quixotic effort to retell the story of Don Quixote has taken a new turn with the revelation that Ewan McGregor has agreed to star in the film, replacing Johnny Depp, who appeared in Gilliam’s original 1999 production until it was halted by illness and weather. In an interview with Britain’s Empire magazine at the Cannes Film Festival, Gilliam, a founding member of the Monty Python comedy group (he did the bizarre graphics), paid McGregor the most left-handed of compliments: “There’s a lot of colors to Ewan that he’s not been showing recently and it’s time for him to show them again,” Gilliam said. “He’s got a great sense of humor and he’s a wonderful actor. He’s wonderfully boyish and can be charming — when he flashes a smile, everybody melts. He wields it like a nuclear bomb.” McGregor will be co-starring in the movie with Robert Duvall, who has the title role. Gilliam did not indicate whether any of the original footage shot for the film in 1999 will be used in the new one. The collapse of that production was chronicled in the 2002 documentary Lost in La Mancha.