Doctor Who could be heading for the big screen in the next few years. At least, new showrunner Steven Moffat told the Edinburgh International Television Festival that he thought a big-screen Who would be a good idea – as long as it didn’t interfere with the filming of the TV show. BBC Fiction Controller Jane Tranter also said she “wouldn’t rule out” a Who film last year. At his presentation over the weekend, Moffat also talked about spoilers, and revealed who wouldn’t be playing the Doctor. On the topic of a third Doctor Who motion picture, Moffat told the gathering:
As long as it was great and fantastic then yeah. But a film is on [for] 90 minutes and that is not as important as the series. But as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the show we could do it.
He said that when he bailed on his commitment to write TIntin movies to take over Doctor Who, director Steven Spielberg told him “The world would be a poorer place without Doctor Who.” Moffat, who devoted a lot of his recent mega-library two-parter to lecturing against spoilers, had a message for those of us who spread plot info in advance: “Shut up! Just shut up!” He said it’s pretty easy to get spoilers on Doctor Who, because they practically publish the scripts and they film in public. But you should exercise some self-control, let you become “that bore in the pub who delivers the punchline of a joke a second before it is delivered.” Someone asked if the Doctor would ever be an old man again, as he was in the early years. And he said no, because the new amped-up filming schedule is hard enough for a “superfit David Tennant” and would kill an older lead actor. “For Doctor Who to turn into an old man, you’d be pissed off,” he added. “Even William Hartnell had trouble back then, he was often ill and he forgot his lines. I think the Doctor will always be about 40.” [Guardian]
