We may never get another big-budget Doctor Who movie, now that Harry Potter director David Yates seems to have abandoned his plans. But it appears there will be a theatrically released film connected to Doctor Who, sooner than you expect.
K9, the robot dog who traveled around time and space with the Doctor back in the 1970s and has popped up intermittently since then, is set to star in his own big movie. Bob Baker, who co-created K9 back in 1977’s episode “The Invisible Enemy,” is behind this new venture.
According to the press release, via Doctor Who News:
A new look high tech K9 for today’s cinema is being prepared for film stardom.
The film “K9-TIMEQUAKE” has been written by one of K9’s original creators; Bob Baker, a renowned writer of classic Doctor Who serials. Bob went on to co-write with Nick Park the Oscar and Bafta winning Wallace & Gromit series of film shorts as well as the feature film Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
The new K9 will be appearing in a Multi-Million Dollar movie which promises to be a great action adventure set in deep Space. The film will be full of dashing heroes and heroines, Androids, monstrous Aliens and an ultimate foe who will also be familiar to Doctor Who fans everywhere; the megalomaniac OMEGA.
The film is to be a UK co-production with exteriors filmed overseas and studio work planned for the UK.
It’s somewhat surprising that Omega is set to be in this film as well, given that Omega is very much an integral part of the Doctor Who universe (as a founding member of the Doctor’s own society, the Time Lords.) But bear in mind that Baker also co-created Omega, as the writer of 1973’s “The Three Doctors,” and presumably still owns some rights in the character.
Baker already used his ownership of K9 to make a short-lived Australian TV series starring the tin dog. Here’s a segment of one episode:
Charlie Jane Anders is the author of All The Birds in the Sky, coming in January from Tor Books. Follow her on Twitter, and email her.