Doctor Who to become Hollywood film, leaked Sony emails reveal
Doctor Who to become Hollywood film, leaked Sony emails reveal
BBC will make Doctor Who film ‘within eight years’ but writers are resisting pressure to rush out a silver screen adaptation, according to Sony Pictures emails released by Wikileaks
Doctor Who will be made into a Hollywood blockbuster despite the misgivings of the writers who do not want to rush into making a movie, according to leaked Sony emails published by Wikileaks.
Danny Cohen, the Director of BBC Television, claimed that the popular TV series will become a film under an eight-year plan to keep the franchise alive.
But the show’s team are “very hot under the collar” because they feel “their position on it is not being listened to or accepted.”
They want to wait until the time is right and have made their feelings “very clear” on the matter, one Sony email reveals.
Mr Cohen claims there is “tremendous interest” in a Dr Who film and says there has been “pressure” to make it from BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s money-making arm.
Other emails claim that some of the Oscars judges did not want 12 Years a Slave, directed by Britain’s Steve McQueen, to win Best Picture – because it was not patriotic enough to America.
Danny Cohen, the BBC’s Director of Television
The details were included in a database of 30,287 documents and 173,132 emails that was uploaded to the WikiLeaks website after hackers stole them from Sony Pictures Entertainment, the company’s movie division, last November.
The database is the first time the information has been made available in one place in a searchable format.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said that the documents ‘show the inner workings of an influential multinational corporation’ and should be in the public domain.
But Sony reacted with fury and a spokesman said that the company wanted to “strongly condemn” Assange’s actions.
The plans for Doctor Who were put in an email sent in January last year from Andrea Wong, president of International Production for Sony, to the company’s chief executive Michael Lynton.
A Hollywood version of Doctor Who could be extremely profitable for the BBC – but risks ruining the brand if it is done badly.
The email says: “He (Cohen) said that while there has been tremendous interest (and pressure from BBCWW) (BBC Worldwide) to do a Dr Who film, the show runners feel very clear that they don’t want to do one at this moment.
“That said, over the course of the coming months, the show running team is coming up with an 8 year timeline for the brand – laying out all that will happen with it.
“He says that a film will certainly be a part of that timeline. So the answer is that a film won’t happen in the next year to 18 months, but it is expected that it will happen after that within the 8 year horizon.’
Lynton’s response was: “Sounds like we need to meet with the show runners.”
Source – The Telegraph