A Doctor Who Movie?
There’s a news story on the Doctor Who News site saying that a new Doctor Who movie is in the works–or at least under consideration. Variety apparently originally reported this, quoting David Yates (of Harry Potter movie fame) as the prospective director of the movie. I’m not sure exactly what I think about this. Sure, there have been episodes of Who longer than an hour in the revived series, but writing for a 2-hour movie is very different from writing a 1-hour TV show. It would have to be a really good story, and have enough complexity and interest to sustain an audience over that length of time. There have been enough failed attempts to take TV shows to the big screen in the past (e.g. Masters of the Universe, The Flintstones, The A-Team, Bewitched…) that I wonder how successfully this can be achieved. With good writers and a great director, perhaps. The other question I have other than “is this wise?” is “why?” For the life of me, other than reaching out to a Hollywood audience, I can’t think of a good reason why they would want to bother making a Doctor Who movie. The TV show has been successful for nearly 50 years, and has a large and loyal international following. Are there stories and concepts to be explored that require a movie format? Or is this just the BBC/Stephen Moffat letting success go to their heads? What do you think?
In other Doctor Who news, the BBC’s annual Children in Need charity event is on Friday, and will feature a mini-episode. This will be the first time I have watched a new episode of Doctor Who with both my brothers in the same room in 25 years. 🙂
I too have difficulty trying to reason precisely why we need a Doctor Who movie. True, the budget is a fraction of what would be a feature film budget, but Doctor Who has never been about the special FX. I’m not going to nay-say from the get-go, but I do have reservations as to why this is happening and I would take some convincing that there is any story that couldn’t be told within the tv series and only film.