The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
Cast: Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort

For anyone who wants the whole story on how The Man Who Killed Don Quixote conquered Terry Gilliam, just rent the "unmaking of" documentary Lost in La Mancha. A quick recap: Gilliam had set out to adapt Miguel de Cervantes' classic about the self-styled conquistador, starring Jean Rochefort as the titular protagonist and a pre-Pirates Johnny Depp as the contemporary marketing exec who drops into the past and gets mistaken for Quixote's sidekick Sancho Panza. A hernia injury to Rochefort, a hailstorm that literally wiped out the production, and a host of other obstacles left Gilliam chasing windmills himself after the film's financing fell through.

Project Status: No stranger to long-gestating projects — including an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Good Omens — Gilliam remains hopeful about finishing Don Quixote, saying in 2006 that he and cowriter Tony Grisoni were close to getting back the rights to their script. At least the Brazil director is in good company: Orson Welles adaptation of Quixote was also left unfinished.

NEXT: Megalopolis, an ambitious Francis Ford Coppola epic