The series is choking on its own backstory, but with a standalone story and big bucks behind it anything can happen
Doctor Who celebrated its 48th anniversary recently, but news that the august time-travel serial may make the transition to Hollywood was met with dismay, indifference and mockery by followers, the uninterested and aficionados alike. As one Guardian commenter snickered: "Justin Timberlake to do the voice of K9?"
These are all understandable responses. I don't like change or new things either, and I'd hide in a police box if I thought it would help avoid them. But there are several reasons why a Who movie may be the best thing to happen to – warning, terrible word coming up – the franchise, along with an elephantine caveat of why it may not, which I'll come to in due course.
First up, we don't need to worry about canon. David Yates, who is behind the mooted reboot, said a "radical transformation" was needed for the show to work as a movie, and that they'd "start from scratch". This means there'll be none of the soul-searching of trying to fit whatever is made into the show's engagingly odd and complex backstory and mythology. The film starts as a blank canvas – it's a man in a blue box, he can travel anywhere in space and time. Anything could happen. That's exciting – particularly as the series has, of late, got itself tied up in overarching back-plots and cliffhangers. It is, to an extent, choking on its own continuity. A movie could be a standalone story, as is much of Who at its best.
Next up: swallow your cardboard-set pride and think how awesome Doctor Who could be with a big budget. I'm not saying the show in its current incarnation looks cheap or, worse, should be judged solely on the number of explosions – of which there are already plenty. And despite the financial constraints the BBC does a much better job of hiding them than they were able to in the pre-CGI era. Still, Neil Gaiman's brilliant episode The Doctor's Wife had to be reduced in scope, money issues preventing him from fully exploring the Tardis's twisting innards. Imagine a writer like him being given free reign.
And now to the prickly fear of the Doctor being "Americanised". I'll tackle this in two parts. First, choice of actor – I don't care where he or she is from, as long as they're right for the part. Mos Def made an excellent Ford Prefect in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy film, though I've no idea how he ever convinced Arthur he was really from Guildford.
Second, many people have a protective attitude towards the show as a whole like it's an avatar of Britishness – or at least Englishness – despite the central character being an alien from Gallifrey. A similar, if less understandable, parochialism was shown over the Cadbury's hoo-hah: how dare our multinational corporate venture be owned by Americans. They wouldn't understand, they'll made us eat Hershey's. Americans understand Who all right – there's two generations hooked on it due to past PBS repeats and current blockbuster status on BBC America.
If anything, I'd be more fearful of the opposite – a kind of sealed-in-aspic version of a Britain that never was. A mawkish, imagined place that no one I know has ever been to, like Richard Curtis's versions of Notting Hill (or 19th century Provence for that matter), or the twee tourist Arcadia as seen in the joyless Harry Potter movies.
Which is where the elephant comes in. Yates directed the last four Potter films.
The idea of him being connected to the project is indeed troubling. But the film is still in the early stages of development hell, and anything could happen. Yates could be kidnapped by the Master, and Terry Gilliam might step in to direct. Gaiman may be free to write. And Timberlake would make a fantastic K9.
