David Yates to direct Doctor Who blockbuster movie

A blockbuster Doctor Who movie is in the works in Los Angeles, according to a report.

According to Variety, Harry Potter director David Yates is currently developing a Doctor Who movie with Jane Tranter and BBC Worldwide Productions.

"We're looking at writers now. We're going to spend two to three years to get it right," he said. "It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena."

"The notion of the time-travelling Time Lord is such a strong one, because you can express story and drama in any dimension or time," Yates said.

Doctor Who previously hit the big screen in the 1960s with two spin-off films starring Peter Cushing.

Yates says that his movie will be completely independent of the original TV series, with Matt Smith currently in the lead role.

"Russell T. Davies and then Steven Moffat have done their own transformations, which were fantastic, but we have to put that aside and start from scratch," he said.

The director and BBC Worldwide are currently looking for a scriptwiter in both the UK and US.

"We want a British sensibility, but having said that, Steve Kloves wrote the Potter films and captured that British sensibility perfectly, so we are looking at American writers too," he explained.