David Yates developing Dr. Who
Posted by Anthonyon 21. 11. 2011in News Chat
I know Doctor Who is a super popular show that I manage to neglect but something is forcing my hand to give the property some attention. David Yates, director of the last 4 Harry Potter movies, is taking on the task of adapting the property for theatrical release.
Source: Obsessed with Film
After deciding an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand wasn’t really for him, Variety reports that the director of the last four Harry Potter movies David Yates is developing a Doctor Who movie with the BBC.
“We’re going to spend two to three years to get it right,” says Yates. “…We’re looking at writers now.”
This will be the Timelord’s first big screen movie in decades and Yates says it will have no ties whatsoever to the current television incarnation starring Matt Smith…
“It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena…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.”
“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,”
“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
This is really exciting news and a really good move for David Yates to continue to progress his career. “Dr. Who” does have an incredibly large following and I certainly hope that Yates decides to hop into the directors chair for this project. It’s interesting that he wants the film to maintain a fairly British tone, which I love, but begs me to wonder who he would take on the iconic role. Will he go for an A-list American or an A-list British star? And does he still have Dan Radcliffe’s number because he could really use a bone…
This post was written by :
Anthony who has written 640 posts on The Movie Blog
visit author's website | Contact the Author
I was wondering how they would play this. I’m not sure I like the idea of a Doctor Who movie. It fits better on the small screen in my opinion. Plus I have the feeling that if a movie fails it could pull the TV series down with it.
The Doctor Who setting and plots have always been very British. Will it translate? I know there are many international fans of the series, but will the wider population pay to see the movie? I mean, a movie about a British talking, human looking, space and time travelling alien. An alien who flies around in a strangly non-iconic (blue) British phone box and battles child-friendly aliens and monsters????? In fact the only good reason to make a movie is to make it less infantile and bring it back from the kids channel crap it has become since Matt Smith arrived!
If they adapt it for a broader audience, what will it become? George Clooney flying a space cruiser and Daleks that look more like Transformers.
Then theres the whole recasting issue. WHO do you hire to play the Doc? British or American? Oh hell! I don’t like this one bit!!!
I’m not saying I dislike Matt Smith as the Doctor and I do like some of the Series 5 episodes. However Series 6 was just plain awful! The story goes all over the place, certain things are not explained well and re-using of former characters and aliens (even in passing) is becoming silly!!!