Geek News: Is Johnny Depp the Next Doctor?!?

I tend to give the rumor mill a wide berth, but this one is just too crazy to ignore. Plus it’s “confirmed by anonymous Hollywood sources”, and we all know they’re never wrong. Tor.com, usually fairly reliable, today picked up an article from a website called PubArticles. The original has since been taken down, but Tor is claiming that sources have confirmed for them that Johnny Depp has been cast as the Doctor for a 2012 big-screen film, written by Russell T. Davies.

This makes a certain kind of sense. It’s well known Davies was shopping a “Doctor” film set in America, though originally it was supposed to star David Tennant. It makes sense that studios would want to recast the lead with someone better known, and if Depp really would agree to do it, he would be near the top of my list for American actors who could take on the role. Casting rumors follow Depp around like children follow an ice cream truck, but I suppose it’s possible that he’s a big enough Who fan to jump at this chance.

He does remind me of the Sixth Doctor for some reason.

The original article has an unconfirmed quote from Davies and everything. Perhaps more concerning, it contains strange plot details that do not seem to be written by someone who saw the original show: “…on a journey through time and space with a crew of volunteers treating humanity’s illnesses brought on by invading aliens. He cures the bubonic plague and then goes to Africa to fight Ebola.” Umm…

This should all be treated with a huge grain of salt, of course. However, it may not even be the most preposterous Who rumor this week. The Daily Star ran an item stating that production on the next Christmas Special for the current Matt Smith version of the show was thrown into chaos because Stephen Moffat lost the only copy of the script. It claims shooting is delayed while Moffat hurriedly produces a new version. Weirdly, there is a column in this month’s Doctor Who Monthly that would appear to say something very similar, though the lead time on that publication is such that any correlation is very unlikely.

So, let me get this straight. Moffat not only writes the Who scripts on an old type-writer and thus does not have any back-ups saved, he only writes one draft, and then he keeps the only copy rather than give it to the production team or actors? The entire thing makes no sense. (Here’s an io9.com article further explaining this business)

I guess we’ll see what happens. Do you think Depp would make a decent Doctor? If not, and if you could cast any actor in a film like this, who would you cast?

About Dan

Dan Joslyn grew up in Ohio but now lives in Las Vegas, NV with his lovely ginger girlfriend, Tiarra, where he works as an office monkey. He enjoys reviewing movies and television for the site, and over-analyzing such things. He may be the Chosen One… but he probably isn’t.

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