DR. WHO GETS A BIGSCREEN REBOOT WITH 'POTTER' HELMER YATES
EXCLUSIVE: HARRY POTTER director David Yates is teaming up with the BBC to turn its iconic sci-fi TV series DOCTOR WHO into a bigscreen franchise, Variety's Adam Dawtrey exclusively reports from London. Yates, who directed the last four Potter films, told Variety that he is about to start work on developing the pic with Jane Tranter, BBC Worldwide's L.A.-based exec VP of programming and production. "We're looking at writers now," Yates said. "We're going to spend two to three years to get it right. ... It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena." The franchise follows 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. Series ran from 1963 to 1989, and then was successfully rebooted in 2005, which Tranter oversaw. Yates made clear that his movie adaptation would not follow on from the current TV series, but would take a completely fresh approach.
