With Terry Gilliam’s long-gestating Don Quixote project stalling yet again, THR is reporting that Disney is now readying its own adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s classic 1605 novel courtesy of screenwriter Billy Ray (The Hunger Games, Captain Phillips).
The Spanish novel tells the story of an aristocrat called Alanso Quixano, “who, after reading too many novels about chivalry, loses his sanity and comes to believe that knights, maidens and dragons really exist. Making a portly neighbor his squire, the man refashions himself a knight named Don Quixote and sets off on a quest for adventure. Innkeepers become lords, windmills become dragons and peasant girls become ladies-in-waiting to him as he and his servant find themselves in situations that are often comical, disastrous and violent.”
According to the report, Disney is planning to create an adaptation similar in tone to the “madcap and fantastical nature” of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, with Ray producing alongside Gordon Gray (The Rookie, Million Dollar Arm).
