Doctor Who and the Star Trek franchise model...

[Captaindemotion]

^You're not comparing like with like. SG & Friends had definitive casts who the audience wanted to see together. By its very nature, DW rotates and changes cast, from lead onwards. There is no need to worry about the incumbent actor wanting a pay rise when there's a built-in in-universe explanation for replacing him.

As regards the budget thing, a DW film is still going to have to be funded by the BBC, which has a finite budget. Should they spend the equivalent of an entire season's budget on a 2 hour film just so that we can see cooler SFX on the big screen?

 

[MacLeod]

^You're not comparing like with like. SG & Friends had definitive casts who the audience wanted to see together. By its very nature, DW rotates and changes cast, from lead onwards. There is no need to worry about the incumbent actor wanting a pay rise when there's a built-in in-universe explanation for replacing him.

As regards the budget thing, a DW film is still going to have to be funded by the BBC, which has a finite budget. Should they spend the equivalent of an entire season's budget on a 2 hour film just so that we can see cooler SFX on the big screen?

And in many respects the rotating cast is part of the reason for DW's longevity.

 

[DWF]

^You're not comparing like with like. SG & Friends had definitive casts who the audience wanted to see together. By its very nature, DW rotates and changes cast, from lead onwards. There is no need to worry about the incumbent actor wanting a pay rise when there's a built-in in-universe explanation for replacing him.

As regards the budget thing, a DW film is still going to have to be funded by the BBC, which has a finite budget. Should they spend the equivalent of an entire season's budget on a 2 hour film just so that we can see cooler SFX on the big screen?

I can't see a Doctor Who theater movie being finded by the BBC. And a movie would cost far more than the budget for an entire season.

 

[The Wormhole]

I apologize in advance, because I'm going to be jumping all over the place here. Hopefully it makes some kind of sense.

There are a couple reasons to do a film with your past Doctor (or Enterprise crew, or SG team, or Friends). At least half of them are boringly financial.

1) You had stories you just couldn't do on a TV budget.
2) Your cast has gotten too expensive. Maybe this isn't a problem with a BBC show, but it certainly was a factor in shows like SG1. RDA wants to spend more time with his family. Michael Shanks is tired of wearing glasses. Chris Judge is tired of shaving his head. But for the right money, they'll do it one more time.

Look at "Friends." By the end of that show, I think it was costing upwards of $4 million just to get the cast to show up for 30 minutes worth of television. When you're that much in the hole before you've even paid a writer, directors, crew, and studio time, filming, and production, it gets harder and harder to make the numbers work. But especially for a show like Doctor Who that has a fairly small cast (The Doctor and a companion or two), you can pay them a movie salary to get them to put up with the character for a couple weeks more.

And whoever said the bit about the workload was on the money. (No pun intended.) You keep your TV production crew turning out as many episodes as you can to make you money that way while you build a production team around your old cast to make a big budget film or two to milk some more bucks out of the old cast. Double your pleasure, double your dollars.

But when you bring in a new Doctor, they are the new face of the Doctor Who franchise. It is quite a disservice bordering on insulting to them to bring their predecessor back in a movie.

Besides, much as this phrase is not liked due to being wrongly used, when Star Trek did TNG movies while DS9 and Voyager were in production, it lead to franchise fatigue, which resulted in the eventual downfall of the franchise. Stargate was also heading in that direction.

The best model for a franchise is to focus on doing TV shows or movies, not both.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^You're not comparing like with like. SG & Friends had definitive casts who the audience wanted to see together. By its very nature, DW rotates and changes cast, from lead onwards. There is no need to worry about the incumbent actor wanting a pay rise when there's a built-in in-universe explanation for replacing him.

As regards the budget thing, a DW film is still going to have to be funded by the BBC, which has a finite budget. Should they spend the equivalent of an entire season's budget on a 2 hour film just so that we can see cooler SFX on the big screen?

I can't see a Doctor Who theater movie being finded by the BBC. And a movie would cost far more than the budget for an entire season.

So who would fund it? And how much would they spend on a film, whose fans can see much the same thing at home for free?

 

[DWF]

^You're not comparing like with like. SG & Friends had definitive casts who the audience wanted to see together. By its very nature, DW rotates and changes cast, from lead onwards. There is no need to worry about the incumbent actor wanting a pay rise when there's a built-in in-universe explanation for replacing him.

As regards the budget thing, a DW film is still going to have to be funded by the BBC, which has a finite budget. Should they spend the equivalent of an entire season's budget on a 2 hour film just so that we can see cooler SFX on the big screen?

I can't see a Doctor Who theater movie being finded by the BBC. And a movie would cost far more than the budget for an entire season.

So who would fund it? And how much would they spend on a film, whose fans can see much the same thing at home for free?

Whomever would get the films rights would fund and produce the movie. And yeah there's little reason to make a movie when you can see it for free on TV. Like I said it'd be better to make the movies after the series has ended.

 

[Ithekro]

Isn't that basicall what they did for Day of the Doctor? Make a movie on most of a year's TV budget.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Personally, I'd prefer that the tv series renews and reinvents itself and continues indefinitely than end it and go to the cinema.

 

[The Wormhole]

Isn't that basicall what they did for Day of the Doctor? Make a movie on most of a year's TV budget.

No, Day of the Doctor had a very small budget, roughly equal to one average episode.

 

[Doctorwhovian]

Interestingly in 1986 during the show's troubled late era, Michael Grade and Sydney Newman (DW's co-creator) considered bringing back Patrick Troughton as the Doctor. However nothing really happened with this, and Troughton died around that time. Some fans have speculated that the Troughton idea influenced the casting of Sylvestor McCoy, who bears a physical resemblance of sorts to Troughton. (Although they are very, very different actors).

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I like Capaldi but I wouldn't particularly want to see his Doctor on the big screen. Get as much of a "big screen" actor as they can find and go big big big. Maybe Tennant could get away with it but Capaldi and his Twelve works better with the intimacy of the living room in my mind. I would treat TV and film as different beasts with different strengths. TV Doctors only last three seasons anyway, they'll manage.