I remember, back in 2000, Wes Craven stating that Scream 4 would probably happen between 2002 and 2004 with a brand new cast and a brand new storyline… Scream 4 was eventually shot in 2010, hit screens in 2011 with the three main characters, the same setting as the first movie and a continuation of the main storyline.

Sorry M. Yates, but as long as Steven Moffat or someone at the BBC doesn’t confirm the movie, you can do as many interviews as you want, I won’t believe you. And so far, with the show still going strong and soon reaching a rare milestone, I just don’t see anything interesting a movie could bring.

To do a film it has to be one-off and this is why a show like Star Trek is perfect, because very few story-lines linger round for several episodes, unlike Doctor Who where something at the start of a season might not be explained until the very end, at least in the current incarnation of the show. But even the classic series was a serial show, so although it exists in a different manner, it’s still dependant on it being a serial.

We had the Peter Cushing films, yes, but then the show had no history, so many elements could be changed without hesitation, such as the Doctor being human and being called Dr. Who. Looking at those films though, the real focus was actually on the Daleks and not ‘Dr. Who’.

Tbh, a show like Doctor Who hasn’t ‘evolved’ in the same way something like Superman has, as an example you used. It’s a show which has changed it’s regular cast on a frequent basis, but it’s feel and look have remained constant all throughout. So, any change like the one you suggested would damage the film quite severely, because it’s not what people would recognise as Doctor Who.

At the end of the day, Doctor Who is a very, very difficult show to translate into film, simply because it’s a success as a TV show, and not as a film (series) as well, unlike Star Trek or Star Wars, as a couple of other sci-fi examples.

Look at some of the properties that have made a successful leap to the silver screen: for every “The Avengers” flop there is a “Mission Impossible” film that succeeds. How you define “succeeds” is another matter, of course. The “Impossible” films take elements from the original series and makes them relevant to the audience at the time. That’s what the 2005 reboot of “Doctor Who” did; it kept the fundamental elements of the series, and represented them in an interesting and relevant manner. If a big screen version of “Doctor Who” were to happen it most certainly can’t be a like-for-like transference from the television series; it has to be something that at heart is about an alien on the run from his own people… or one who is the last of his kind, but it does need to be of the moment, rather than mired in nostalgia. After all, when you look at how much Superman has evolved since his initial appearance in Action Comics, right up to his newest incarnation in DC’s “The New 52″ line as well as Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel” due out this Summer, you can see how the essence of a character remains despite evolutionary changes in appearance and setting.

After all, if anyone can understand how to be the same man who changes his appearance countless times, then it’s the Doctor…

Because given how he says it’s 5 or 6 years away, many films in that time-span don’t even get made and I have a feeling that’s the case with this one. If we knew for definite what the film’s plot might be then I’d be convinced, but even Yates doesn’t know how it’ll unfold.

All in all, this sounds like something that might happen, rather than will happen.

At the end of the day, I seriously doubt any Doctor Who fan would want a movie that ignored canon.