The Alfama Films Production executive previously sued Gilliam for breach of contract, claiming he owns the rights to the movie.
- Jul 5, 2018
AceShowbiz - Director Terry Gilliam insists the legal battle surrounding The Man Who Killed Don Quixote won't hinder the film's release.
The filmmaker has spent the last 25 years trying to bring his adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes novel to the big screen, and finally debuted the project at the Cannes Film Festival in May, amid a legal wrangle with producer Paolo Branco.
The Alfama Films Production executive sued Gilliam for breach of contract, claiming he owns the rights to the movie, which he exited as a producer before cameras began rolling.
He failed in his bid for an injunction, which would have prevented the film from screening at Cannes, but now Gilliam has been ordered to honour a 2016 contract, which grants Branco rights to the movie.
With the ruling, the producer has announced plans to continue to seek legal action against the movie's bosses at Kinology, distributors at Ocean Films, and bosses at the Cannes Film Festival, but Gilliam is still confident his Don Quixote film will be released as scheduled around the world this summer.
"It is about to be released broadly in Holland and Belgium," Gilliam told The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday, July 04, as he screened the film at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic. "I think Cannes changed things. Paolo just went too far - 'I will tell the festival not to show it...' It seems things are floating along nicely, although he did scare a lot of people away at one point".
Gilliam also refutes claims he has lost the rights to the film.
"The Paris court did not exactly rule in (Branco's) favour," he said. "It just did not change the very early ruling about a technicality. The press is saying that I have lost my rights, which is not true as I am the director and it is the producers that own the rights".
Bosses at Amazon Studios previously acquired the rights to distribute the movie, starring Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce, in the U.S., but they dropped out of the deal after Branco launched his lawsuit.
