Back in May, we reported that a French court had thrown out producer Paulo Branco’s claim that he should own the rights to Terry Gilliam’s long-in-the-works film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote because of a financial agreement Gilliam had made with him in 2016 during a previous attempt to get the film made. Branco’s funding fell through, prompting Gilliam to find new investors, but Branco still believed that he deserved ownership of the film. Now, a French appeals court has reversed the earlier decision and ruled in Branco’s favor, giving him the rights to The Man Who Killed Don Quixote and declaring that Gilliam must pay his production company about $11,000 to cover the cost of the appeal. Branco now tells Screen Daily that he’s going to be “seeking damages with interest” from everyone who had “produced and exploited the film” without his approval. He also says this ruling means everything done with the film up until now—including its production and any screenings—have been “completely illegal.” After the original ruling was made in Gilliam’s favor, he said that Branco’s attempts to take over control of the movie were “laughable, absurd” and that he was “trying to make as much money as he possibly can from a film he did not produce.” Basically, despite already having a premiere at Cannes and regular screenings in French theaters, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is still facing ridiculously dramatic roadblocks.
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