News Of A Doctor Who Movie May Have Been Exaggerated

You may have read Variety‘s news yesterday that David Yates (director on the last four Harry Potter films) was working with Jane Tranter of BBC to bring a Doctor Who franchise to theaters. Yates said they’re still looking for writers and are “going to spend two to three years to get it right”. Assume I made a “timey-whimey” joke here and we’ll move on, deal? Yates also terrified some Whovians by saying, “Russell T. Davies and then Steven Moffat have done their own transformations, which were fantastic, but we have to put that aside and start from scratch” which could be construed to mean none of the previous Doctors or companions we like will be involved, which would suck. This also has some worrying that this means the TV series is going to end soon, to be replaced with a movie franchise with different writers and actors.

It probably didn’t help that Yates also said wanted a “British sensibility” but might hire American writers. Ooo! Ooo! Hire me! My British English skills are impeccable! Just look at all these Britishisms I’m totally versed in:

I can’t wait to put whimsy flimsy mark and scribblers down on flatty watty tree stacks and help craft this brighty wall play. Call me on the ringy tingy talkie any time, BBC.

Um, anyway, now that it’s all over bar the shouting, [See, BBC? Hire me.] some involved with Doctor Who are suggesting the news isn’t as big as it seems. There’s often a Doctor Who movie in development, and it usually falls through. Now we have Twitter updates from people who know Who.

(UPDATED TO ADD) Steven Moffat tweeted this just after this post went live.

OH SNAP.

BBC executive Edward Russell tweeted:

Doctor Who Magazine tweeted:

BBC America tweeted:

I’ll let Bleeding Cool summarize:

Okay, Yates already said there was no script, so that’s taken care of, and we know that nobody could cast a film three years out from production without a screenplay, but no production crew? I guess that means Yates hasn’t actually signed anything. [BleedingCool]

In other words, we’ll start panicking when, and if, this actually goes into production. For now we’ll just have to sit on our grippy tippy graspermabobs (hands) and wait.

[Sources: BleedingCool, Variety, GeeksAreSexy, Mike Mitchell]

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