David Yates, veteran of the last four Harry Potter movies, has revealed he’s working with the BBC to produce a movie version of long-running and much-loved sci-fi series Doctor Who .
“We’re looking at writers right now,” said Yates to Variety . “We’re going to spend two to three years to get it right. It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena.”
However, hardcore fans of the series might be perturbed to learn that Yates’ vision for the Doctor might be quite different to what they are used to. Indeed, Yates plans to create a film that won’t follow on from the series, and can instead be consumed as a standalone piece.
“Russell T Davies and then Steven Moffat have done their own transformations, which were fantastic,” he explains, “but we have to put that aside and start from scratch.”
Matt Smith’s name is conspicuous by its absence, and one can only assume that Yates will be looking for a new leading man to take on the Timelord. However, the director is keen to ensure that his version will retain some of the TV show’s classic ingredients.
“We want a British sensibility,” insists Yates, “but having said that, Steve Kloves wrote the Potter films and captured that British sensibility perfectly, so we are looking at American writers too.”
One can only hope Yates will stick to tradition in a visual sense as well, and ushers in a host of naff villains clad head to toe in ill-fitting latex. No release date has been attached as yet, so expect plenty of debate to rage over who should play the Doctor, which villains should feature and whether Tom Baker should be involved, over the weeks to come…
