Doctor Who Big-Screen Movie in the Works

In the original series, it was established that Time Lords could only regenerate 12 times, giving them 13 iterations. Each actor that played the Doctor is counted as an interation. Matt Smith is the 11th actor to play the Doctor which means that there can only be two more, unless the "12 Regenerations" limit is changed for him somehow.

Whatever the limit is, there are obviously ways around it. The Master "officially" ran out of regenerations back in the Tom Baker era, but he keeps on doing it anyway.

River gave the Doctor the rest of her regenerations in order to save him. I have to think that's going to come back into play at some point.

Until recently the Master had been stealing bodies instead, but if there's one way around the regeneration limit, there may be others.

Thing is. The regeneration limit is an artificial barrier put in place by the Time Lords. They were capable of bypassing it when the situation called for it (such as when they offered The Master) a new set of regenerations.

Now that the Time Lords are out of the picture, there likely isn't any sort of limiter in effect now, save mischance and lack of access to proper facilities in which to regenerate.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

This, both old and new series are in the same continuity.

But as others have said, there are ways around the regeneration limit. The Master started stealing bodies, but whether this was a Time Lord function or something he'd managed to cook up on his own is unknown. Of course, he was actually killed in the TV Movie and then brought back to life to fight in the Time War, apparently gaining a new set of regenerations in the process.

Likewise as others have mentioned, he was promised a new set of regenerations in The Five Doctors.

But we have this conversation every time regeneration limits are brought up...

Superman, Batman, and the X-Men are also mires of continuity and retcons and hundreds of supporting characters at their worst too, y'know.

But this was also my biggest hurdle to watching the show, I was under the impression you needed to start from the beginning, a la Star Trek. (I was also confused as hell as to why there was a different guy with the same woman in some of the ads.) Sure I grew up with the original Star Trek, but these days I just have a... thing... about shows from that period. Hell, even now, after having seen most of the "new era" I -still- doubt I'll ever watch anything pre-9th Doctor.

That aside, no, I don't have any faith that Hollywood could pull it off. The producers meetings alone would be the stuff of nightmares.

So this Doctor Who guy...what kind of a name is Who, anyway?
Well that's not his name--
--then why is he called Doctor Who?
He's not. He's only called the Doctor.
So why is the show called Doctor Who?

and

So he has this living ship that can travel through space and time--
Oh! That's good! Let's see some design sketches.
*holds up a picture of the TARDIS*
...what's that?
The Doctor's ship, called the TARDIS.
But it's a box. Where are the engines? Lasers? Those sorts of things?
It doesn't have that. The Doctor doesn't--
--so what does he do in it if he doesn't fly around in space battles?
He travels through space and time.
Hmph. Well, how big is it? Don't some villains on Star Trek fly around in cubes?
It's about the size of a police call box.
A what?
*explains, and points to the words on the TARDIS*
Uh-huh.

And if you stop and listen, you can almost hear the internet screaming at the thought of Bay-formed Daleks.

I laughed.

And this sums up neatly why I hope this never, ever comes to pass. Either leave it in the hands of the current team or not at all.