Steve Moffat Compares DOCTOR WHO Film To Ill-Prepared Trip To The Moon
In other words... he thinks it's a dumb idea from Yates and the BBC to announce a movie without much of a clue of how to do it.
It was surprisingly announced earlier this week that a Doctor Who reboot movie is in the works. This would be a theatrical film directed by David Yates, best known for the four most recent Harry Potter films and it's said would not feature any of the current or former cast, and would be purposefully kept separate from the TV series. There is a possibility that it might be released in time for the 50th anniversary in 2013 (if not it will be 2014). The problem? They don't yet have a script, a cast, a production team or anything more than a blueprint of what they want to do with the film franchise except to say that Doctor Who "needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena". The news that came this week was strange. It came very much without warning, David Yates had spoke just a few days earlier about focusing his efforts on a smaller as his next project and planning his Al Capone epic with Tom Hardy for a few years into the future. There was no talk of Doctor Who and the news released in Variety seemed weak on details. This wasn't like when Sony rebooted the Spider-Man franchise a few years ago, this was eerily quiet. The probability is Steve Moffat was hearing the news of the Doctor Who film reboot (well not quite a reboot as the current t.v. series is not getting cancelled or anything like that) and the only official reaction we've heard from him is a tweet recently put out by Moffat. In it, he writes; Announcing my personal moonshot, starting from scratch. No money, no plan, no help from NASA. But I know where the moon is Ive seen it.In other words... he thinks it's a dumb idea from Yates and the BBC to announce as boldly as they did a new Doctor Who movie with no official cast or crew on board that probably won't be near to production for a few years. But, considering all this, we do approach this idea with cautious optimism. This would not be the first big screen adventure for the Doctor. In 1965 and 1966, at the height of Dalekmania, there were two movies starring Peter Cushing as Dr. Who, a human inventor who creates a time-travel machine called TARDIS (not the). He and his companions, which in the second film included Bernard Cribbins, best known for playing Donnas grandfather in the current series, spent two movies fighting daleks and doing not much else.
Then there was, of course, the ill-received Doctor Who movie that was made in the USA and aired on Fox in 1996. It wasnot good. But it gave us Paul McGann and it does at least fit into the continuity. So given the track record of movies based on the series, youd think I had a real dread, but I dont. I like the work Yates did on the Harry Potter movies and I feel that hes a good choice for this film, which with luck will turn into a franchise. Theres a certain way it would have to be done to be a success, of course. Theyd have to have a British actor as the Doctor (Commonwealth country actors might be acceptable). Johnny Depp needs to be kept far, far away. Ideally Id want the Doctor to be in his 40s or 50s, and not a sex symbol. Theyd also have to make sure that the story isnt from the Doctors point of view, but from the Companions. After all, the Doctor isnt the one that the audience can relate to. Theyd also have to be careful about the villains, but more on that in our previous article. Id also want them to make sure they hold onto the elements that make the show unique, like the TARDIS being shaped like a police box, and of course Id want to have the same basic theme music, though naturally updated. Id also love to see them get a more international feel to it, filming in a couple interesting, exotic locations. In the end, of course, theres every possibility this movie wont see the light of day. But the possibility that it might, leaves us, as mentioned, cautiously optimistic. (article co-written by Matt Holmes)