Update: Sources have told us the spot will air on ESPN.
Is this what it has come to? Following another collapse of his attempt to make “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” Terry Gilliam is following up his gig directing an Arcade Fire webcast with a commercial for Pepsi starring David Arquette and featuring Becky Fly (“The Last Exorcism”).
Word of the project first came from a Jackson Sun profile (via Bleeding Cool) of local actress Becky Fly. Her agent Josh Robbins of BNA Talent Group, dropped the news of Gilliam’s involvement telling the paper that Fly was on her way to Talladega to begin work on the film this Friday which he says is a Terry Gilliam project.
“She’s playing a construction worker,” said Robbins. “This is just an amazing time for Becky right now. It’s incredible that she booked that role. It all came about from her performance in ‘The Last Exorcism.’ “
The actress herself confirmed the news telling the Jackson Sun, “I can’t wait to meet Terry Gilliam, who’s one of the Monty Python gang. I really worked on my lines. I taped myself in front of my kids in class. I had to make up a ghost story about Talladega.”
Bleeding Cool did some more digging and confirmed Arquette’s starring role and found some of the actor’s Twitpics from the set, one of which bearing the caption: “Filming a short film for Pepsi with Terry Gilliam.”
Of course how long this will be and what it actually is remains to be seen. Our guess? It will be some kind of comedic riff about a legendary NASCAR driver with semi-scripted dialogue. Basically a short version of “Talladega Nights.” No word yet on when this will air but given that this isn’t your ordinary soda ad, and with the Super Bowl just over 4 months away….we’ll let you connect the dots.
Again, this is all just guesswork so who knows, but whatever it is, it will be our last filmed Gilliam project for a while as he is soon set to begin work on “The Damnation Of Faust” for the English National Opera.
