As I awoke this morning, I felt, shall we say, a rumbling in The Force. It was like there was a sporadic global brain explosion happening – I can still feel it now. Yes, WHO-vians have been informed that a big screen DOCTOR WHO is one step closer, thanks in part to David Yates – that dude who had something to do with a little-known franchise called HARRY POTTER.
Yates was speaking to Daily Variety, saying that he was about to start work on developing a big screen WHO movie with Jane Tranter, head of L.A.-based BBC Worldwide Productions. Rumours of a big screen outing for the Timelord have been doing the rounds for years, and even with this news the film still seems to be a few years off. “We’re going to spend two to three years to get it right,” Yates said. “It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena.”
Now that collective brain explosion I mentioned may have been partially caused by the notion that the current cast and crew (Head WHO Honcho Steven Moffatt and current Doctor Matt Smith) won’t be involved at all with the project. “Russell T. Davies and then Steven Moffat have done their own transformations, which were fantastic” Yates continued “But we have to put that aside and start from scratch.” (KA-BOOM!!) “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.
There are two previous films, based on the TV series: DOCTOR WHO AND THE DALEKS (1965) and DOCTOR WHO: DALEKS’ INVASION EARTH 2150 A.D.(1966), both starring Peter Cushing.
As well as directing the last four HARRY POTTER films, David Yates has also worked on several BBC TV series, including
THE WAY WE LIVE NOW and STATE OF PLAY.
SOURCE: Variety.com
