Peter Jackson May Direct a Doctor Who Episode

Now that multi-Academy Award-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson has completed his duties on the nearly $3 billion dollar-grossing Hobbit trilogy, he can finally relax and not have the GDP of New Zealand depending on him. So what is the logical next step for the filmmaker? Directing an episode of the BBC’s iconic “Doctor Who,” that’s what! This is exactly what the filmmaker teased in a new video posted to his Facebook page, which you can check out below.

In the tongue-in-cheek video, Jackson’s daughter Katie is reading through his emails while he polishes his Oscars and finds one from “Doctor Who” lead writer and Executive Producer Stephen Moffat which mentions the prospect of Peter leaving New Zealand to come to Cardiff and shoot an episode in 12 days (as opposed to the six months Jackson usually spent on his Hobbit epics). That’s followed by a couple of unexpected guests, one of whom is The Doctor himself Peter Capaldi hand-delivering a contract from the BBC, while the other is a Dalek.

So, it all-but-announces Jackson as helming an episode for the upcoming 10th series of the show… or is it just the kookie director having a bit of fun with Capaldi, who happens to be in New Zealand right now for a few chat show appearances? The idea of a filmmaker who can essentially write his own ticket going down-and-dirty on a relatively cheap TV show would not be unprecedented (four-time Fast & Furious helmer Justin Lin recently shot two episodes of HBO’s “True Detective”) but it is certainly a stretch. However, given Jackson’s previous working relationship with screenwriter Moffat on 2011’s The Adventures of Tintin, it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibilities.

“He’s mentioned it, and then we e-mail him and he doesn’t reply,” exclaimed Moffat recently to Digital Spy. “He’s a genuine big old ‘Doctor Who’ fan, I think his schedule is difficult. I don’t know – maybe [it’ll happen]. But I’m not quite sure what a movie director who can do anything he likes gets out of our budget and our schedule, because the skillset required is pretending you’re Peter Jackson, without a budget.”

“I would be very happy to,” Jackson stated of directing the show back in 2013. “I’d love to try my hand at television, because I’ve never had the discipline of having to shoot for those impossibly tiny schedules. I think I could do it okay now.”

The final episode of the current Series 9 of “Doctor Who,” entitled “Hell Bent,” will premiere on December 5.