Steven Moffat, the big boss that runs Doctor Who, says that a big screen version of the popular UK series. Provided it doesn’t suck.
“It would be good to see it in the cinema so long as it is great and fantastic,” Moffat said. He did add, though, that he didn’t want the film to butt heads with the series.
“I’m not against it … so long as it never gets in the way of the TV show. If it got in the way of the show that would be appalling,” Moffat said.
I was drawn into the cult following of DrWho when I was in my early 20s. The artsy college folk I was hanging out with were obsessed with it and its long history. As of 5 July 2008, 751 individual episodes, including one television movie of Doctor Who have been aired, so granted there is a fair bit of history of this quirky time lord travelling through time and space to have adventures on earth and beyond.
Oh yeah, and he does all this travlleing in a time machine called a Tardis (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space). Which looks like a 1960s British Policebox.
There are literally generations of DrWho fans out there who are aware of this long gestated history but still it has a cult following. More importantly in the UK it is considered a children’s show airing old eps on BBCKids, yet here the target demographic is young adult and up running on SciFi.
I think a feature film could do well provided it is in Canon with the show. Kind of like the first X-Files movie. There was still show after it, they just used the movie event as a big plot point. It’s the only way it could work. There is just too much history to try and “start over” in an adaptation on the big screen.
For those who don’t know, after the first Doctor, William Hartnell finished his fourth season he was replaced with Patrick Troughton and they explained that the change in appearance came on as he was reincarnated. A trait written into the script that said Time Lords were immortal and thus started a gimmick with the show. This also allowed them to keep this timeless man fresh often changing his personality. Currently there have been 10 Doctors, with the latest incarnation being played by David Tennant arguably the most popular doctor to date.
