It has been 20 years in the making with half of Hollywood tipped for the lead role and has been dubbed the most ill-fated production in cinema history.

Just when it looked like Terry Gilliam’s film on Don Quixote was finally going to be released on its eighth attempt, the Monty Python director’s labour of love hit yet another, last-minute legal snag.

On Wednesday, a Paris appeals court was asked to rule on who owns the director’s rights to the film: Gilliam, 77, or Paulo Branco, 69, the film’s erstwhile producer.

The row threatens blocking its release once more.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, the film’s final name, has spawned countless articles and even a documentary about its disastrous production, as well as rumours that the entire project was cursed.

An earlier version in 1998 with Johnny Depp as a time-travelling marketing executive who Don Quixote mistakes for Sancho Panza, backfired terribly.

Jean Rochefort, the French actor playing Quixote, fell ill, while shooting was plagued by flypasts from a nearby Nato military base and flash floods washed the entire set away overnight.

But last autumn, Gilliam announced that the film was finally in the can starring Jonathan Pryce and Star Wars actor Adam Driver, as Quixote and Sancho Panza respectively.