It is really easy...do it like they did the first XFiles Movie. Honestly, it's no big deal.
David (Harry Potter) Yates to direct Doctor Who The Movie!
- Thread starter StCoop
- Start date
^ What, make it like an extended tv episode that you could see on tv for free?
no, that was the second X Files movie.
Except for Yates not being part of the Cardiff DW team, and starting from scratch with a different Doctor, and Moffat insisting the Cardiff team would do it with their Doctor.
Yeah, completely in agreement there...
Frankly all this talk about a "big budget Hollywood Doctor Who movie" just seems laughable to me. Whether it's made by the Harry Potter director or by Steven Moffat, we're talking about a movie that would probably draw about the same tiny cult audience that the Firefly movie did. Or, more tellingly, the 1996 TV movie.
All this controversy just feels like a lot of fuss over nothing.
All this controversy just feels like a lot of fuss over nothing.
Moffat elaborates further on his Tweets to Radio Times:
The interesting thing is that the only thing that contradicts Yates is Moffat's insistence than the incumbent Doctor actor must star. Even "developed" doesn't contradict Yates, as the film isn't far enough along in its development to be considered "development." The rest is generally positive spin.
Actually he didn't specify who would play the Doctor. Deliberately so, I suspect. And just so's were absolutely clear here, neither did Moffat - he merely said 'the current Doctor'.
I haven't seen it but at least it had the advantage (or not, to judge by the box-office) of not being on the air at the same time as the show, thus at least filling a gap in fans' lives.
well, i'm still not going to asphyxiate over this.
So has there actually been an official announcement from the BBC regarding this movie or is this just all coming from Yates? You'd think that the BBC would want to release an official press release announcing a new Doctor Who movie.
What would be the point before it moves out of Development and into Production?
The point would be to clarify that one hand knows what the other hand is doing and to calm everyone down. Moffat claims one thing, Yates claims another. You'd think the actual network with the rights to the thing would step up and clear the air but maybe they just like the attention.
Feh.
I suggest letting the Metrons step in to handle it. On an asteroid with sulfur, coal, potassium nitrate, bamboo, and huge diamonds. And maybe some blue lizards with many legs, too.
Or perhaps the Organians.
The BBC has issued a statement, though. It came shortly after the Variety article, the Tweet that said words to the effect of "A Doctor Who movie remains in development with BBC Worldwide in Los Angeles." Moffat's Tweets from earlier today are contradictory to that; his statement that Radio Times quoted was carefully parsed (there is no "developed" movie as Moffat says because it's "in development" as the BBC says) so as not to be overly contradictory.
The one major contradiction is seemingly on the actor to play the Doctor; it's unrealistic to expect the television actor to work for 21 straight months to shoot the television series -- to keep BBC1 happy -- and the film. I expect that Worldwide would prefer a different Doctor; not only does it give them something different to market, but it also gives the film the room to do its own thing.
A tweet is not the same thing as an official press release though to me. I think this whole thing has been badly mishandled...I should clarify I'm not totally against the notion of a separate continuity either but the way it has been "announced" and dealt with seems bad to me. I think it has also helped to further the "controversial" nature of the story as well.
Nah, the Organians would just make their keyboards too hot when they tried to write their scripts.
Bring on the Metrons with their asteroids with sulfur, coal, potassium nitrate, bamboo, and huge diamonds. Hell, Moffat and Yates could even talk into microphones to make sure they understood each other.
Or the matter could be sorted out in court... Q's court from Farpoint and AGT!
That's true. But at the same time, there's nothing for a press release to announce. There's no film in production, it's still in development. As Lonemagpie pointed out pages ago, the film is now officially in "development hell"; prior to this, we didn't know that there was even a director attached and writers in pitch meetings.
Clearly, the David Yates news came as a surprise to everyone over in Britain. What doesn't seem to have happened was the crisis meeting where the interested parties get their stories straight so they can make an effort to get in front of the story.
But I'm not exactly sure that the story has been "mishandled," because most of the options, like the statement or press release that you want, would make what's actually a very nebulous situation (director is talking to writers about a movie that may or may not happen) sound more definite than it currently is.
What has been mishandled is the messaging. It's not just the crisis management -- or rather, the lack thereof. It's that no one seems to have told Moffat not to say anything, or if he does have to say something to be positive and supportive, to say things like "I look forward to seeing what BBC Worldwide does with the Doctor" or "A world with more Doctor Who in it is better than a world with less," that sort of thing. Instead, Moffat comes across as someone whose sole interest is to protect his own turf.
To be blunt, Moffat is not coming across as a BBC team player at all. I realize that his pride was probably wounded -- he walked away from a Hollywood career to make Doctor Who, and now there's a Doctor Who movie in development in Hollywood without him -- by the Variety article, but he also needs to step up, be professional, do his job, and do as the people who sign his paychecks expect him to do.
The story had died off in the last two weeks. Even with the Los Angeles Times article, I'm not sure we'd be talking about this today, to quite this degree, if Moffat hadn't said anything in opposition to what Yates had said. The controversy has been manufactured.
For what it's worth, I'm not bothered by a Doctor Who movie in a different continuity at all. Comic book fans can deal with multiple continuities, and aren't Doctor Who fans supposed to be the smart ones in fandom? Isn't that what Craig Ferguson told us?
My ideal Doctor Who movie would be "The Doctor Begins," but if it has to be an Unbound Doctor, I won't mind so long as it's done well. I fail to see how getting more Doctor Who is a bad thing.
To be fair, Moffat did say "It's an incredibly exciting idea to get that magic blue box flying across our cinema screens, so stand by for further developments." (source) But unsurprisingly (and if he's even remotely media savvy he had to have known it would happen), the response has focused on every other part of his comments.
Interesting. Radio Times didn't have that line in their article. It's a good line. I think much of fandom's agita would dissipate if they saw it.
