While I get the skepticism anytime the possibility of a Doctor Who movie is brought up – Who else remembers the rumors this time last year about an announcement due at the last San Diego Comic-Con? – I don’t understand just why the idea of Johnny Depp playing the Doctor in a big budget movie, as apparently “confirmed” by Tor.com yesterday, seems to upset some people.
The rumor originated on a now-deleted post from PubArticles which suggested that said hypothetical movie would be written by former Who showrunner Russell T. Davies and focus on a story in which the Doctor traveled through time fighting an alien invasion that came in the form of various viruses, including Ebola and the Bubonic Plague. So far so unlikely – although Davies has come up with worse plots, it has to be said – but the kicker was this sentence towards the end of the piece:
So it was with even greater surprise that movie studio sources confirmed with Tor.com today that, while it can’t comment on possible story elements, the casting of Johnny Depp as the Doctor for a 2012 film is confirmed.
Am I the only person who thinks that – outside of Matt Smith himself – Depp would be the perfect Movie Doctor? A talented, successful actor, known increasingly for playing off-kilter roles with an undercurrent of darkness in kid-friendly movies? Who could be better, seriously? The only thing that would make me happier would be to see Depp’s occasional partner in crime Terry Gilliam direct. It’s almost enough to make me wish that the news was true…
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