It’s being reported that David Yates and the BBC are set to develop a Doctor Who movie with hopes of turning the property into one of the next big franchises.

Yates is working with BBC Worldwide executive vice president of programming and production Jane Tranter, and potential writers are being looked at right now. Yates says that they’re not rushing the project, and that two to three years will be taken to make sure they get things right, explaining that it will require “quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena.”

And while the long-running Doctor Who TV series, currently starring Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor, is massively popular, the planned movie franchise will offer up a completely new take on on the property.

Yates said:

This isn’t the first time a Doctor Who movie has been made or attempted. Peter Cushing starred in 1965’s Doctor Who and the Daleks and 1966’s Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., and multiple attempts at a film have been unsuccessfully made by the BBC since then.

It does, however, seem like one of the best chances to see it actually happen with Yates—who directed the final four Harry Potter movies, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and noth parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—on board. Yates has also worked with Tranter and the BBC in the past on such titles as The Way We Live Now, and The Sins.

What do you think about a new Doctor Who movie franchise?

[Source: Variety]