Terry Gilliam: The directorial equivalent of that eccentric friend who just can’t hold down a steady job. (That is, if you even have such a friend in the first place.) The last news on him did, fortunately, present small glimmer of hope that his long-planned, notoriously failed The Man Who Killed Don Quixote would finally, according to an involved party, be “in the saddle and ready to ride under new colours.”

And, while it might happen, a chat with THR has revealed that the project’s “off again now” and “[p]ostponed until next year at least.” That’s a shame — and the kind of news one would only be reasonable to expect at this point — but there is another feature cooking as we speak. Despite his own wife’s advice not to speak out on it, since “everyone writes about [a possible film] and then it disappears,” he offered up one small hint: “Romania.”

He’s been doing some work in Bucharest, Romania, to be specific, as it’s “the best place to make quality films without spending a lot of money” — and this is a guy who knows the troubles of film financing. Now, what the project could actually be is a mystery for which we do not have the answer. Mr. Vertigo, possibly? That one might be a little too stodgy, development-wise, for me to really have any hopes, but the Romanian landscapes could be a good cinematic substitute for its ’20s-era depiction of the Midwest.

Then again, I’m just taking complete and total shots in the dark on this one — even though I’m sort of happy to. Gilliam getting any directing work, no matter the size, is fine by me, and it’s all the better if these projects are ones he’s truly passionate about. In far too many ways, though, this sense of independence has been the biggest problem of his career.

Is there any clue as to what Gilliam is doing next? Are you hoping to find out?