It was recently announced that Harry Potter director, David Yates would be tackling a Doctor Who movie. He also confirmed that he would be starting from scratch and not using the Davies and Moffat created canon.

What remains to be seen is exactly where Yates will go. Will he reference any previous Time Lords or life on Gallifrey at all? Will long-standing foes like the Daleks, Cybermen, or others figure in? Will the Time War have an acknowledgement into the chronology?

The LA Times did a post Harry Potter debrief with Yates with his Doctor Who future coming up several times.

It’s not clear who will portray The Doctor in the film, which Yates is developing with Jane Tranter, the head of BBC Worldwide, which is based in Los Angeles, but the director has said he will “start from scratch.” Right now, Yates says, the search is on for a screenwriter and a script, although he has also hinted that Kloves might be part of the mix moving forward. Considering Kloves was born in central Texas that might cause a bit of turbulence with diehard “Who” fans in Britain who consider the property to be uniquely British. On Tuesday Yates made a point to praise Steven Moffat, who in 2008 took over from Davies as the television show’s head writer and executive producer.

“Steven Moffat has done a wonderful job and Russell T Davies who kind of reinvented it the first time around,” Yates said. ”They’re great. David Tennant was great. Matt Smith is brilliant, he’s marvelous, and very, very clever.”

The wry, irreverent Moffatt (who is among the writers of Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin“) has, through Twitter, made some cryptic comments that many observers assume refer to Yates and Tranter going in search of their new Time Lord. “Announcing my personal moonshot, starting from scratch. No money, no plan, no help from NASA. But I know where the moon is — I’ve seen it,” Moffatt wrote, leading to speculation that he was questioning the viability of the film and its outsider team – or perhaps taking a shot at securing some involvement in the project? It’s not clear and Yates, stirring his tea, was mum on his own plans or priorities as far as The Doctor’s cinematic future. The filmmaker’s expression conveyed one message that would resonate with any TARDIS owner: Time will tell

In addition to the LA Times, MTV caught up with Yates at last night’s BAFTA Los Angeles 2011 Britannia Awards and got him to talk about writers and scripts.

As a fan of the series, are you concerned with Yates taking the series in its current direction?