Doctor Who Movie Announced By Harry Potter Director David Yates

The man who brought you the final adventures of the Boy Who Lived is about to pay a visit to the Doctor.

Director David Yates, who stepped behind the camera for the final four installments of the Harry Potter series including the two-part Deathly Hallows finale, is teaming with BBC to adapt another major franchise for the big-screen in the form of Doctor Who, reports Variety.

The details are still murky at the moment, but here’s what we do know…

» “The notion of the time-travelling Time Lord is such a strong one, because you can express story and drama in any dimension or time,” Yates said of his attraction to the Doctor, adding: “It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena.”

» Yates’ take on “Who” will have nothing to do with the Time Lord’s previous televised adventures: “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.”

» It’s going to take “two to three years to get it right,” Yates said, indicating that production on “Who” is still a ways away. He added that the search is currently on for writers to tackle the property, and he’s not closed off to an American’s take. “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 said.

To summarize: Yates is directing a “Who” movie that will be “a completely fresh approach” and won’t follow the TV series, no writers have been hired yet, and we’re about two-three years away from getting it “right.” In other words, don’t expect casting announcements anytime soon.

That said, even though there’s no connection to the current “Who” continuity, there is a common “Potter” thread between Yates and “Goblet of Fire” actor David Tennant, who played the Tenth Doctor for many years. Just putting that out there.

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