While promoting the DVD/Blu-ray release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 last month director David Yates announced he would be teaming up with the BBC to bring Doctor Who to the big screen. At the time he said though “Russell T. Davies and then Steven Moffat have done their own transformations, which were fantastic, we have to put that aside and start from scratch”. Basically saying the movie will be separate from the current TV show.

Well Steven Moffat, head writer and executive producer of the BBC series, has insisted that the planned movie adaptation will not be a reboot and would star whoever plays the Doctor on the TV show (whether Matt Smith or the next Doctor).

Moffat tweeted:

To clarify: any Doctor Who movie would be made by the BBC team, star the current TV Doctor and certainly NOT be a Hollywood reboot.

Movie thing: David Yates, great director, was speaking off the cuff, on a red carpet. You’ve seen the rubbish I talk when I’m cornered.

Yates could have been speaking “off the cuff” like Moffat suggested, but I can’t see why Yates would suggest starting from scratch if that wasn’t being discussed or the intention. Following Yates’ announcement last month Moffat didn’t seem too keen on the idea, and had a little dig on Twitter about how they’re making the movie public when it’s still in the early stages.

Announcing my personal moonshot, starting from scratch. No money, no plan, no help from NASA. But I know where the moon is – I’ve seen it.

It can’t be fun working on the Doctor Who TV show (which will return later next year) knowing someone has plans to do their own movie version in a couple of years, ignoring yours. These conflicting reports from Moffat/Yates could suggest there’s an internal struggle going on at the BBC (TV show people vs. movie people) regarding the direction of the movie.

Still, earlier this week Yates told MTV “it’s a long journey and we’re going to take our time with it”, so they’ve got plenty of time to decide whether it’ll be a continuation of the TV show or not.

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While promoting the DVD/Blu-ray release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 director David Yates told the Orlando Sentinel that he has a few potential projects lined up. One has an “amazing role” for Potter actress Emma Watson, while the others range from “inter-galactic sci-fi epics to three character dramas set in a New York apartment. Thrillers, comedies, every conceivable genre.”

Following on from this Yates spoke to Variety and revealed what the “inter-galactic sci-fi epic” was. It’s Doctor Who.

Here are the details:

“Harry Potter” director David Yates is teaming up with the BBC to turn its iconic sci-fi TV series “Doctor Who” into a bigscreen franchise.

“We’re looking at writers now. We’re going to spend two to three years to get it right,” he said. “It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena.”

“The notion of the time-travelling Time Lord is such a strong one, because you can express story and drama in any dimension or time,” Yates said.

“We want a British sensibility, but having said that, Steve Kloves wrote the Potter films and captured that British sensibility perfectly, so we are looking at American writers too,” he explained.

The movie won’t follow on from the current TV show, which stars Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor. Yates said he would “start from scratch”, so the film will probably be a reboot for the big screen.

For those unaware of Doctor Who, it’s a British TV show which originally ran from 1963 to 1989, and then was successfully rebooted in 2005 with actor Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor. David Tennant took on the role in the second series, and Matt Smith gained the role in 2009 with Steven Moffat (The Adventures of Tintin) on writing duties.

In the show The Doctor is a Time Lord, an extraterrestrial from the planet Gallifrey, who travels through time and space in an internally vast time machine called the TARDIS. Two films were made in the 60s, but this will be the first time the property has been given a big budget outing. The possibilities for story-lines are endless, and with The Doctor regenerating into a new body every few years it won’t be restricted by one actor’s availability/interest/salary.

Yates has already proven he can handle both fantasy and drama with Harry Potter, so it’ll be interesting to see him turn his hand to sci-fi.

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Doctor Who is probably Britain’s biggest TV show (apart from those Simon Cowell makes) and is broadcast weekly in 42 countries around the world, so with such a large fan base it wouldn’t be shock to learn that BBC Film are quietly working on a movie version of the show. Unlike Lost and other shows that could potentially spawn a movie, Doctor Who episodes have no strict links between them, and the TV specials being shown throughout this year prove that the Doctor can appear just about anywhere, which makes a movie version more viable.

Buried at the bottom of a Doctor Who related BBC article we get:

David Tennant will firstly appear in three specials, starting with The Waters of Mars in November.

Meanwhile, Doctor Who may be heading for the big screen after a spokeswoman for BBC Films confirmed that “a script is in development”.

BBC entertainment correspondent Lizo Mzimba said there were no guarantees a film would be made and that, if the project went into full production, a release would be a long time away.

So if it eventually happens David Tennant probably won’t be the Doctor, instead it may be Matt Smith who will take over the role in 2010.

Steven Moffat, who co-wrote The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn for Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, will be taking over Russell T Davies’ job as head writer and executive produce for future series, so he would be a great candidate to write the script for the movie.

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Doctor Who has been a ratings winner ever since it was rebooted in 2005. However, the BBC are now planning to make four specials in place of a full season. Does this mean Doctor Who is running out of steam? Well according to head writer Steven Moffat (who turned down writing the script for Steven Spielberg’s Tintin trilogy to work on Doctor Who) the doctor hasn’t finished yet, as a movie could be on the cards.

…as long as it never gets in the way of the show. It would be great to see it at the cinema. It’s been there before so it would be good to see it again. A movie is 90 minutes, that’s not that different from making a single episode, so I’m not against it.”

I would be interested in seeing a movie. I wouldn’t call myself an avid Doctor Who fan however I watch it now and again. It is cheesy British sci-fi at it’s best, so why not make it into a movie?

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