David Yates is collaborating with BBC's Jane Tranter to make a new take on the iconic British TV series, and he is currently still looking for perfect scribes to pen the script.
- Nov 15, 2011
AceShowbiz - After helming the last four "Harry Potter" movies, director David Yates is set to adapt an iconic British sci-fi TV series to the big screen. The 47-year-old English filmmaker is set to direct a new take on "Doctor Who", with BBC's Jane Tranter serving as the producer.
Speaking to Variety about the development of his upcoming film project, Yates said, "We're looking at writers now. We're going to spend two to three years to get it right." He added, "It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena."
The director said that he will look for the scribes in both U.S. and U.K. though he wants his works to have a British sensibility. He explained, "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."
The original "Doctor Who" series was aired on the BBC from 1963 to 1989. The story centers on "the adventures across space and time of a super-intelligent alien in human form, who battles a variety of cosmic bad guys aided by plucky human companions."
The TV show was rebooted by Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat in 2005. Yates claimed that his works will not be based on the reboot version, but he will take a new approach to his project. "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," said Yates.
Beside "Doctor Who", Yates might add another high profile film project on his list. Deadline reported that the filmmaker has been eyed to direct a biopic called "The Imitation Game" for Warner Bros. Pictures.
The biopic, in which Leonardo DiCaprio is reportedly very interested to star in, is about Alan Turing. He was a World War II-era math genius, who killed himself with a cyanide-laced apple after being criminally prosecuted for being a homosexual.
