Film blog

The crew of the ill-fated mining ship Red Dwarf have been through an awful lot. From fatal explosions to alien weddings, polymorphs to bad hair days, there's not a lot that our plucky adventurers haven't seen. Luckily for us the brain of the outfit, a certain Doug Naylor, has never tired of his unfortunate space-men and has been talking up the idea of making the leap into hyperspace (well, celluloid) for almost as long as The Cat's been worried about his hemlines.

The long-mooted idea of a Red Dwarf movie finally seemed to be on its way to becoming reality in 2001 when it began to approach the realms of pre-production. Hell, there was even a script in place. But even the least observant fan must have noticed that it's 2009 and there's still no picture. So where did it all go wrong?

Naylor wrote an open letter to fans in 2004 which pointed to major issues with the financing of the movie, promises being reneged on and the sort of weaselling out of things by film bosses that would make even Arnold J Rimmer blush. Perhaps the most baffling and frustrating thing for Naylor, not to mention the crew and fans, was the comment that a Red Dwarf film would be simply 'too commercial'. Perish the thought of a Brit-flick that people actually want to see. It just wouldn't do would it?

So with money issues proving a huge stumbling block, and Naylor's attempts at financing the adventure seemingly hitting a wall, the future of the big-screen debut of the Dwarf is not looking too peachy. Not unless there are a few more offers along the lines of the very generous one made by the 'Duke of Manchester' who offered Naylor £60 million. Sadly it seems that Naylor's not the only man who can come up with pretty incredible tales of fantasy...

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Well, in the end, we got bored hanging around for the Red Dwarf film outing, and decided to bring it back on Dave. Hurrah! And the rest is history.