With the entirety of the leaked Sony emails getting uploaded to Wikileaks, we now know that the BBC wants to make another Doctor Who movie. An email exchange from January 2014 between Andrew Wong (president of International Production for Sony) and Sony chief executive Michael Lynton details how BBC Worldwide wants to capitalize on the brand’s resurgence in popularity, but the showrunners are worried about it being done badly.
They seem to have reached a compromise: the showrunners have been laying out an eight-year brand timeline into which a movie could fit. From Wong’s email:
[Danny Cohen, director of BBC Television] said that while there has been tremendous interest (and pressure from BBCWW) [BBC Worldwide] to do a Dr. Who film, the show runners feel very clear that they don’t want to do one at this moment.
That said, over the course of the coming months, the show running team is coming up with an 8 year timeline for the brand—laying out all that will happen with it.
He says that a film will certainly be a part of that timeline. So the answer is that a film won’t happen in the next year to 18 months, but it is expected that it will happen after that within the 8 year horizon.
There were two Doctor Who movies (Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks—Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.) made in the 1960s starring Peter Cushing, but they are regarded as existing outside of the television series’ canon. And of course, there’s the 1996 movie starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, which was intended to reboot the franchise. With the series instead getting rebooted in 2005, a movie would likely supplement the TV show instead of the other way around.
But, eight years from now! This is an especially interesting detail, as Steven Moffat recently confirmed that the series would run for at least five more years. Whether the showrunners’ eight-year plan is still in the works—or if, like other plans leaked by the Sony emails, that strategy has been scrapped—has yet to be seen.
Is another Who movie a good idea? How could it work, and what kinds of things would you like to see? Share your ideas in the comments!
