The privileged and lucky few didn’t have to wait til Cannes. As mentioned earlier in the day in brief, Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” screened in L.A. last night to potential “major independent” buyers. EW has a little bit to add in their reactions (but their story basically serves to muscle in and prove them have ‘Parnassus’ contacts and cred too).
The audience was apparently left, “befuddled,” but apparently the consensus felt it was “better than expected,” i.e., expectations are low because Gilliam hasn’t had a home run in forever.
As mentioned, the picture came allegedly affixed with a seven figure price tag too and as THR said, the sellers were looking for a “studio-level deal with studio-level prices.”
But EW tries to refute that by saying “such an opaque story might limit its commercial prospects.” Blah, blah, blah. Why did we start this story again? Oh yeah, the reactions which are new, but minimal and can mean all kinds of things. However, no one should be surprised that anyone seeing a Terry Gilliam film — especially the fairly convoluted ‘Parnassus’ script.
Harry Knowles also recently saw the film, but well… you know it was going to be a win-win for the producers to show him that obviously.
It’s interesting to note today’s Hollywood Reporter piece that calls, ‘Parnassus’ the “hottest U.S. acquisition title at the upcoming Festival de Cannes,” was written by Steven Zeitchik, the same writer who wrote and suggested that excitement from U.S. buyers about the project had waned back in March (and that initial piece which begat a lot of “Is Parnassus Never Coming Out?” blog speculation elicited a pretty fierce response from the ‘Parnassus’ camp too who called it “erroneous” and “misleading”). Just goes to show, we guess…