Cinema's supposed madman, Terry Gilliam, is considering taking an old movie idea to the more creative medium of television.
Filmmaker Terry Gilliam has often been referred to as the mad man of cinema. However, in our recent talk with the director about his new film, The Zero Theorem, the famed film-centric mind spoke about plans to also move into the small screen.
“It’s a strange time, so yes, I am in fact talking about a project for television,” Gilliam said to us in the interview. “It will be an eight-part miniseries based on an old script that hasn’t found life in the world of cinema. My big problem is I like making things for the big screen; the scale of the experience is very different.”
The news is a bit surprising considering Gilliam’s reputation as one of cinema’s great auteurs, however Gilliam points out that the climate of both film and television is greatly in flux at the moment.
“What’s happening with television, with cable…that’s where all the good work is coming from,” Gilliam said. “With Breaking Bad, I finally saw it at the end of last year and it’s still the best thing I’ve seen for a long time. Films are really getting in trouble, because the writers are moving to television, so there is not the great writing for film available anymore, because they just keep doing Marvel Comics, it seems to me. Then when you do something that is more interesting, the problem is, how do you get it seen? What we’re doing here for the first time, which I don’t know is a good or bad thing—The Zero Theorem is coming out first through Video on Demand, and then a month later in the cinemas. So, I don’t know if it is a good or a bad thing, but it’s the world we’re living in now, when you make films that don’t fit the big tentpole pattern.”
As for this TV project, we don’t know what has been chosen. But if we had to wager a guess, we'd say it might be The Defective Detective. From what was known about the project, it would definitely fit into a miniseries format and would feel at home with the current TV climate. The 12 Monkeys TV project that he is not connected with, however, had no play in this decision. “Well, for the 12 Monkeys things, I have no connection with it. In fact, I wasn’t even told about it, until I read about it on the web, so it has nothing to do with me. It was interesting though to find out that Jeffery Goines is being turned into a woman. I think what they got is just another time travel series. I’m glad Chris Marker is dead, so he doesn’t have to see what Le Jettée spawned, ultimately.” Le Jettée is a French 1962 still photo featurette that 12 Monkeys was partially inspired by.
We also asked Gilliam about his original plans to possibly crowd fund The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.
“I’m not going that route,” Gilliam said. “It may be foolish, but I think we’ve got the money from our normal sources. I don’t know why…crowd funding, if I need it, I will do it. But it always feels a little bit like begging and taking advantage of my fans. They may see that they’re involved, but that’s fake. They’re not really involved; I just want their money, as most people do. I just think it’s kind of desperate in one way that people are willing to throw in a lot of money to feel that they are part of something. The sadness is that they need that to feel like they are part of something. It just seems a little bit abstract and distant for my taste. I might just be a type of old, emotional luddite (laughter) as opposed to a technological one.”
For now though, The Zero Theorem is available through August on VOD, but will hit theaters on September 19th. It is then you can read our entire interview with Terry about the film.
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