The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (Terry Gilliam, 2009)

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

Like Natalie Wood in Brainstorm.

or Ed Wood??

[jmj713]

Or Brandon Lee in The Crow.

[Dylan]

Like Natalie Wood in Brainstorm.

That's exactly what I was thinking...

Out of all the obstacles and pain Gilliam has endured in his entire career to get his films made and finished, this is absolutely the worst thing thats ever happened (and ever will happen) to one of his productions. That we've lost an incredibly talented actor as well just makes things all the more horrible.

[tavernier]

Like Natalie Wood in Brainstorm.

That's exactly what I was thinking...

I just hope Gilliam's is better as a memorial and as a movie.

[miless]

Like Natalie Wood in Brainstorm.

but hopefully better.

[Cde.]

Gilliam usually has a candid documentary following the production of his films as an insurance precaution in case something like this happens. If the project collapses, at least they've salvaged something from the production, Lost in La Mancha style.

[Antoine Doinel]

Gilliam might as well start selling his movies his pairs: the original project and the inevitable documentary for when it all falls apart.

[miless]

I think it's official...
God hates Terry Gilliam.

[domino harvey]

I knew Fred Phelps was responsible

[Fletch F. Fletch]

From The Guardian:

Ledger death puts Gilliam fantasy in doubt

Nick Tanner. Wednesday January 23, 2008. Guardian Unlimited

The death of Heath Ledger has called into question the future of The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, the Terry Gilliam fantasy that the star was recently shooting in London.

The $30m adventure, which charts a travelling impresario's struggle to save his daughter from the devil, completed a 20-day British shoot last weekend. Ledger had taken the role of a mysterious outsider who comes to the aid of the impresario. The cast also included Christopher Plummer as Dr Parnassus, Tom Waits as the Devil, and Lily Cole as Parnassus's daughter.

Ledger, who had worked with Gilliam on 2005's The Brothers Grimm, was the film's biggest star, and a key factor in the British-Canadian production's financing. The cast and crew had just moved to Vancouver to begin blue-screen filming, but the producers are yet to issue a statement on the future of the project.

The loss of Ledger represents the latest in a series of major production setbacks for the trouble-plagued Gilliam. The 1988 epic The Adventures of Baron Munchausen cost $38m but reportedly made only $8m in ticket sales, while his long-cherished $32m production The Man Who Killed Don Quixote had to be abandoned in 1999 after a flood damaged the set and the film's star, Jean Rochefort, suffered a herniated disc.

Ledger recently completed filming on the latest in the Batman franchise, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, in which he plays the role of the Joker. Speaking of the role and his battle with Christian Bale's hero, Ledger recently described the experience as "the most fun I've had with a character". The film is currently in post-production, with a US release date of 18 July.

and from The Hollywood Reporter:

Ledger was in the middle of a break from shooting Terry Gilliam's fantasy adventure "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" and was due back on set in Vancouver later in the week. The film's producers were in meetings Tuesday afternoon in an effort to work around the tragedy.

[Antoine Doinel]

Maybe they could just release what was filmed straight to DVD with storyboards to fill out the missing pieces not unlike Greed.

[klee13]

Am I the only one here not too fond of the title? I think it sounds a bit too much like Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.

I saw the headline in the papers about Ledger this morning at the supermarket. That's so horrible. He was only 28!

Or Brandon Lee in The Crow.

The only difference is he died during shooting. To me, that is utterly unforgivable.

[MichaelB]

It sounds to me as though it'll end up in the same limbo where George Sluizer's Dark Blood currently resides - River Phoenix died mid-production and the completion guarantors decided that too much money had been spent to be able to afford a reshoot with a new actor, but not enough footage had been shot to make the film a viable entity. So it was scrapped.

Come to think of it, Sluizer is almost as unlucky as Terry Gilliam - after the Dark Blood débâcle he tried remaking his brilliant The Vanishing in the sadly deluded belief that the producers wouldn't interfere if the same director was at the helm. And his subsequent features barely seem to have been released anywhere.

[domino harvey]

I'm sure the producers insured Ledger. They're going to recoup some money to reshoot if necessary, or work around it, right?

[MichaelB]

I'm sure the producers insured Ledger. They're going to recoup some money to reshoot if necessary, or work around it, right?

I suspect the completion guarantors are beavering away as I write this. In the case of Dark Blood they clearly couldn't find (or justify) additional funding, probably because it would have pushed the total budget so much higher than originally planned that recoupment would have been more or less impossible.

Presumably Gilliam's film cost a fair bit more, but then again it may have been insured for more - so who knows?

(I imagine we'll find out soon enough, though!)

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

The main problem in a case like this, apart from the creative nightmares of how to solve the problem and the prevarication of completion bond hounds/financiers etc., is the availability of the major players to a new schedule.
There is a major UK production in limbo because of that very reason rather than there being a lack of will to continue.

[MichaelB]

Béla Tarr's The Man From London was stymied at a similar stage - i.e. when substantial amounts had already been shot, just before the crew was due to decamp to a new location - only this time it was the producer who died, not anyone onscreen.

Though in this case there was a happy ending, as he managed to pull all the threads back together and finish the film a year later - though not without cutting the budget and schedule.

(More info here)

[colinr0380]

Come to think of it, Sluizer is almost as unlucky as Terry Gilliam...And his subsequent features barely seem to have been released anywhere.

I remember Crimetime getting a lot of reviews when it was in British cinemas - unfortunately they were mostly negative, which wouldn't have helped following the Vanishing remake. I have got a videotape of the one television screening Channel 4 did of it in 1998 (but then that is not necessarily a sign of the film being poor quality - Naked and The Long Day Closes were only shown once in 1995; The Neon Bible and Institute Benjamenta got their only showing so far in 1998 and so on) and there seems to be a Region 1 Lionsgate DVD.

I hadn't checked for the availability of Sluizer's post Vanishing remake films until now but the very interesting sounding The Stone Raft from 2002 is available on a Region 1 DVD from Image

1998's The Commissioner with John Hurt is out on a UK DVD from Cinema Club.

They are all bare bones but at least it is something. Only his other 1996 film Dying To Go Home doesn't seem to be available on DVD.

Worryingly Sluizer's latest film The Chosen One is a comedy starring Rob Schneider with this plot summary from imdb:

PAUL (Rob Schneider) is an ordinary man who is at the end of his rope. He hates his job, his beautiful wife has left him, and his mother and gay, Buddhist-monk brother constantly remind him of his shortcomings. Although Paul doesn't know it yet, his life is about to change in a big way

[Antoine Doinel]

Maybe Sluzier has found a way to make Rob Schneider vanish.

[miless]

Béla Tarr's The Man From London was stymied at a similar stage - i.e. when substantial amounts had already been shot, just before the crew was due to decamp to a new location - only this time it was the producer who died, not anyone onscreen.

Though in this case there was a happy ending, as he managed to pull all the threads back together and finish the film a year later - though not without cutting the budget and schedule.

(More info here)

Yeah, but people behind the camera are much easier to replace for the simple fact that you don't see them. With actors it is a lot more tricky.

PAUL (Rob Schneider) is an ordinary man who is at the end of his rope. He hates his job, his beautiful wife has left him, and his mother and gay, Buddhist-monk brother constantly remind him of his shortcomings. Although Paul doesn't know it yet, his life is about to change in a big way

when he becomes... a carrot.

[MichaelB]

Yeah, but people behind the camera are much easier to replace for the simple fact that you don't see them. With actors it is a lot more tricky.

Oh, true - but I just cited it as an example of a recent film with a long production hiatus caused by circumstances beyond the director's control.

That said, gut instinct tells me that Imaginarium is doomed unless Gilliam can pull off a really ridiculously audacious stunt along the lines of Jan Švankmajer's Faust, where most of the cast consisted of giant puppets.

(Ironically, Faust's lead actor was suffering from terminal cancer throughout production, though he managed to hang on until the film was completed. And no, I'm not going to ask Švankmajer if he planned the whole human-puppet interaction as a possible contingency plan in case Petr Čepek didn't make it - not least because he's one of the few directors where you can fully believe it was part of the original concept!)

[El Manchego]

Production has been shut down.

It doesn't look too good for Gilliam at this point. I would be amazed if he managed to salvage a film out of this, although it's hard to say not knowing exactly what was left to shoot.

[teddyleevin]

Oh god damnit. This is making me unbelieveably angry. Gilliam's getting older and I want him to make many, many more films before he goes. He definitely deserves his own biopic.

They did film the production right? Maybe we'll at least get a documentary, Lost in the Imaginarium.

[jmj713]

I don't want to come off insensitive to the tragedy or selfish, but it sounds like Heath's role in the project was not that huge that they couldn't perhaps minimize it or cut it out entirely:

Plummer plays the impresario Doctor Parnassus, and Ledger took the role of a mysterious outsider who joins the troupe on a quest through parallel worlds to save the doctor’s daughter (Cole) from the clutches of the devil (Waits).

[MichaelB]

I don't want to come off insensitive to the tragedy or selfish, but it sounds like Heath's role in the project was not that huge that they couldn't perhaps minimize it or cut it out entirely

That description's far too vague - it could just as easily apply to someone who was in every scene!