The Adventures of Baron Munchausen got fired, and all these deals were oral deals. ... Columbia's new CEO, Dawn Steel, said 'Whatever David Puttnam "[has]" said before doesn't interest me'". Regarding the new regime's apparent animosity towards all of Puttnam's projects and "Munchausen", Gilliam added in the same documentary, "I was trying very hard to convince Dawn Steel that this was not a David Puttnam movie, it was a Terry Gilliam movie." Similarly Kent Houston, head of Peerless Camera doing the film's special effects said in "Madness and Misadventures" that they were promised a bonus if they would finish the effects in time, but when
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen are never more than a detail in Gilliam's compositions". Richard Corliss wrote: Everything about "Munchausen" deserves exclamation points, and not just to clear the air of the odor of corporate flop sweat. So here it is! A lavish fairy tale for bright children of all ages! Proof that eccentric films can survive in today's off-the-rack Hollywood! The most inventive fantasy since, well, "Brazil!" You may not believe it, ladies and gentlemen, but it's all true. Vincent Canby called the film "consistently imaginative" and a "spectacle [that] is indeed spectacular and worth the admission price and patches of boredom"; he said