While Edgar Wright has already denied rumors of directing an upcoming episode of Doctor Who, the filmmaker's involvement would resolve a missed opportunity from almost 20 years ago. When rumors of his involvement in Doctor Who season 14 were published by GQ, Edgar Wright quote tweeted the article, simply stating "Untrue!". The director's public denial hasn't stopped Doctor Who fans from speculating on social media about the potential involvement of Edgar Wright on an upcoming episode.
Wright isn't the first big-name director to be linked to Doctor Who, there were persistent rumors around a potential Peter Jackson-directed episode during Steven Moffat's era, while High Rise director Ben Wheatley and Tank Girl director Rachel Talalay both worked on several of Peter Capaldi's Doctor Who episodes. Edgar Wright was a Doctor Who fan as a child, and shared a photo of himself dressed as Fifth Doctor Peter Davison in the run-up to the show's 50th anniversary in 2013.
Edgar Wright's denial of his involvement with the next series of Doctor Who merely shifted the focus to speculating on his potential involvement in the 60th-anniversary special. It remains to be seen whether Wright is deliberately sitting on the information until a suitable time following Jodie Whittaker's departure, or if he's plainly telling the truth. Given the announcement of both David Tennant and Catherine Tate's return and the start of filming on the 60th, Wright's involvement, or lack thereof, may be confirmed soon. However, as with the resurfaced rumors of Hugh Grant playing the Doctor, Edgar Wright potentially directing an episode of Doctor Who also almost happened decades earlier. Having been previously approached before the show's 2004 reboot, Wright's lack of involvement has long been considered a missed opportunity. Now, these fresh rumors could potentially right that wrong.
Why Edgar Wright Is Being Linked To Doctor Who
The rumors of Edgar Wright's involvement with Doctor Who began, appropriately enough, with a blue door. The director posted a photo on Instagram of a weathered-looking blue door with a "Wet Paint" sign taped to it. It wasn't a police box door, it wasn't even the right shade of police box blue, but that didn't stop social media users from speculating that this was a cryptic reference to the TARDIS. Wright followed this post with another cryptic photograph of a hexagonal pattern, that some believed implied the TARDIS console room, which currently has a hexagonal pattern on-screen in Jodie Whittaker's Doctor Who episodes. These social media codebreakers were less sure of the relevance of the third photo of a chandelier. Some suggested this could be a reference to the central TARDIS time-rotor, while others thought that these three photos have no bearing on Doctor Who at all.
Those who believed that Edgar Wright was engaging in cryptic Doctor Who teases drew a link with Russell T Davies' own Instagram feed. One fan spotted that RTD had liked one of the photos, while another suggested the diamonds in the chandelier referred to the 60th "diamond" anniversary. RTD has admitted to spreading misinformation in the run-up to the announcement of Ncuti Gatwa's casting as the Doctor. It therefore wouldn't be at all surprising if RTD liked one of Edgar's photos to fuel speculation. After all, Russell and Edgar almost worked together on Doctor Who before, back at the very beginning of the revival.
Edgar Wright Was Offered Doctor Who In 2004
During a 2013 Reddit AMA alongside his friends and frequent collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, Edgar Wright was asked if he had any interest in directing an episode of Doctor Who. Wright responded that Russell T Davies contacted him directly to offer up the opportunity to direct Doctor Who season 1, episode 1 "Rose". Filming on Christopher Eccleston's debut adventure as the 9th Doctor began in July 2004, while Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg were still busy with Shaun of the Dead. While the film had been released in the UK in April that year, there was still promotional work to be done ahead of the US release in September.
It was for these reasons that Wright declined Davies' offer, thus sealing his fate as another easily sellable potential Davies misdirection. Wright joked that his mother has never forgiven him for turning down Doctor Who, no doubt because all that time she spent taking him to exhibitions and dressing him up as Peter Davison were all for nothing. However, given that Davies has admitted they underestimated the scale of making Doctor Who, it's likely that Edgar Wright, a director known for his multiple takes, would have only added to this chaotic atmosphere. Given his prior experience, Russell T Davies' Doctor Who season 14 will be a more ordered production, and it's rumored that this will be the most cinematic version of the show so far.
Edgar Wright Would Be Perfect For Doctor Who
Edgar Wright would be an ideal choice for directing a more cinematic version of Doctor Who. Not only is he an accomplished movie director in his own right he's also directed some excellent television. The 1990's sitcom Spaced, created by Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes and directed by Wright pushed the boundaries of what UK sitcoms were capable of. It was ostensibly the same flatshare sitcom that could be found everywhere in the 90s, but it had an outlandish, fantastical tone that set it above the likes of Friends. Russell T Davies' 2005 Doctor Who reboot was similar in the sense that it seamlessly combined big sci-fi ideas with more down-to-earth domestic drama. The marriage of these two unique talents on a Doctor Who adventure is an incredibly exciting prospect.
Wright's criminally underrated 2013 film The World's End is the closest to shedding light on what he'd do with an RTD Doctor Who. Not least because in its shifting of the classic sci-fi movie Invasion of the Bodysnatchers to the English home counties it recalls the classic Doctor Who story "The Android Invasion". It's a story of a man who's struggling to move on from the nostalgia for his youth, while also being about an alien invasion by robotic duplicates. It's exactly the sort of story that Russell T Davies would tell, and Wright directs it with his usual frenetic style and visual flair. It's an energy that would back up the more youthful direction that's suggested by Sex Education's Ncuti Gatwa casting as the 14th Doctor.
Add to this his childhood cosplay and the various links back to Doctor Who in Wright's career, and it feels like destiny. He and co-writer Joe Cornish took over from writer Steven Moffat on Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin when the former replaced RTD as showrunner. Wright's 2021 film Last Night In Soho also featured Moffat's 11th Doctor, Matt Smith, and practically every key member of the Spaced cast - Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes, and Nick Frost - have all starred in Doctor Who since it returned in 2005. It's surely time that Edgar Wright joins them in walking through the TARDIS doors, bringing his unique directorial style to 2023's bold new version of the show.