Harry Potter director plans Doctor Who film

Doctor Who is being brought back to the big screen by the man who directed the latest Harry Potter film.

David Yates, who made four of the films in the series featuring JK Rowling's teenage wizard, said he was about to start on the job of bringing the Time Lord back to cinemas.

He told Variety magazine it would take 'two to three years' to get it right.

The long-running sci-fi show has already spawned two films - Doctor Who And The Daleks from 1965 and Doctor Who: Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 AD from 1966, which starred Peter Cushing as the Time Lord.

Yates said: "We're looking at writers now. We're going to spend two to three years to get it right.

"It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena."

It is not clear who will play the Doctor, currently played in the BBC show by Matt Smith, but Yates suggested the film will not involve current writer Steven Moffat.

He told the magazine: "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 did not rule out bringing in an American writer as long as they could provide 'a British sensibility'.