Gilliam signed a deal with Phoenix Pictures as the studio to make the film in 1990 under the name "Don Quixote". Sean Connery was in talks to star as Quixote, but Gilliam disliked the idea because "Quixote is air and Sean is earth". Nigel Hawthorne and Danny DeVito were also in talks to star as Quixote and Panza respectively. However, Gilliam ultimately decided that the budget the studio offered him was too low and dropped from the project to focus on "The Defective Detective", another film he ultimately failed to make. Phoenix Pictures chose Fred Schepisi to replace Gilliam, with John Cleese as Quixote and Robin Williams as Panza, and Steven Haft, Quincy Jones and David Salzman as producers. This version would have been based on an old screenplay by Waldo Salt. However, it was officially cancelled in 1997. In 1997, Gilliam stated, "The years I wasted on this one! I was so frustrated with Hollywood, I went after European money, needing $20 million. And they said, 'You're on.' But I found out I needed more money. That really hurts, that I let a project I'm convinced I'm the best director on the planet to do, slip by." After Schepisi's project collapsed, Gilliam resumed working on the film with co-writer Tony Grisoni, giving it the new name "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote". Instead of featuring a man named Alonso Quixano and Sancho Panza, this new version would instead feature Toby (in early versions "Toby Grisoni", as a joke between Gilliam and co-writer Tony Grisoni), a 21st-century marketing executive thrown back through time and who meets Don Quixote. Their version would also have borrowed elements from Mark Twain's 1889 novel "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", including its time travel elements; after having failed "Don Quixote"s original attempt, Gilliam had unsuccessfully tried to adapt "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" into a film. Gilliam announced "Don Quixote" to be his next project at the UK premiere of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" in 1998, with pre-production starting the same year. Gilliam, tired with Hollywood wanting creative control on his films, had decided to make the film in Europe instead, which according to him was "one big monstrous problem". It was set to have been one of the biggest continental European films ever made, with a budget of $32.1 million that had been scaled back from an original $40 million, and would have been filmed in Spain and throughout Europe.