Terry Gilliam's unrealized projects
During his long career, American-born British film director Terry Gilliam has worked on a number of projects that never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction.
[1] Right after he finished Jabberwocky (1977), Gilliam’s next film project would be Theseus and the Minotaur, based on Greek mythology.
[2] After directing The Life of Brian, Gilliam considered making a film adaption of Mervyn Peakes' fantasy novel Gormenghast.
[8] In the early 1990s, Gilliam attempted to make a film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly.
[21] In June 2015, Gilliam hinted that The Defective Detective could possibly be made into a miniseries on Amazon Prime Video.
[22][23] Variety reported in November that same year that Gilliam and LaGravenese regained the rights to the script from Paramount and "reworked it as a six-hour miniseries.
"[24] In October 1992, it was reported in Variety that Gilliam was signed to direct a film called Cartooned for producer Laura Ziskin.
[14] In 1994, Gilliam attempted to make a film adaptation of Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities with Mel Gibson starring.
[9][14] After Gibson left the project, Gilliam replaced him with Liam Neeson and attempted to make the film for half the initial budget, but to no avail.
"[35] Also in 1994, Gilliam was involved as director of a script called Loony Tunes, which revolved around a normal guy who continually morphs into a cartoon character.
[14] In 2001, Gilliam and McKeown attempted to make Time Bandits II as a television miniseries for the Hallmark Channel.
[50][51][52] Gilliam reportedly criticized the studio's decision to pick Columbus over him and stated, "I was the perfect guy to do Harry Potter.
"[53][54][55] In 2002, Gilliam attempted to direct a film adaptation of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens.
[67] The story eventually appeared in 2019 under the same name, Good Omens, as a 6-episode series streaming on Amazon Prime Video and aired by BBC Two, but it was directed by Douglas Mackinnon, starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant.
In an August 2008 Observer interview, Gorillaz band members Albarn and Hewlett revealed the nature and title of the project, Journey to the West, a film adaptation of the opera of the same name, based on a 16th-century Chinese adventure story also known as Monkey.
[71] In January 2008, while on set of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Gilliam stated that he was looking forward to the project, "[b]ut [he's] still waiting to see a script!".
[72] In 2007, Neil Gaiman expressed interest in having Gilliam direct a film adaptation of The Sandman, but the director was too preoccupied with Good Omens at the moment.
[77][78] In 2014, Gilliam was in talks to make his first animated feature film with Laika, the studio behind Coraline and ParaNorman.
[79] In 2020, Gilliam was attached to direct a film based on an unproduced Stanley Kubrick project titled Lunatic at Large.
[90] Gilliam turned down the offer to direct Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), the sixth film of the series.
[91] When asked if he was interested in directing any of the Harry Potter movies, Gilliam replied, "Warner Bros. had their chance the first time around, and they blew it.
