BBC has tapped David Yates to direct a new Doctor Who film. Yates directed the last four Harry Potter films and will develop a Doctor Who movie with Jane Tranter, head of L.A.-based BBC Worldwide Prods.

“We’re looking at writers now. We’re going to spend two to three years to get it right,” he said. “It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena. The notion of the time-traveling Time Lord is such a strong one, because you can express story and drama in any dimension or time.”

Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat helped reboot the Doctor Who franchise, which has a somewhat large following on BBC America. However, Yates is looking for a new take on the franchise with the movie.

“Russell T. Davies and then Steven Moffat have done their own transformations, which were fantastic, but we have to put that aside and start from scratch,” he said.

Writers from both sides of the Atlantic are being considered. “We want a British sensibility, but having said that, Steve Kloves wrote the Potter films and captured that British sensibility perfectly, so we are looking at American writers too,” he explained.

There have been multiple attempts to make a Doctor Who movies over the years. However, the hiring of Yates makes this the most potent attempt yet to bring Doctor Who to the big screen.

Source: Variety