Hugh Laurie has been named the favourite actor to play Doctor Who in the upcoming big screen outing for the Time Lord.

The House medic beat Gary Oldman to step into the Tardis for David Yates' big-screen adaptation of the beloved TV sci-fi series, according to more than 7,000 readers of entertainment website IGN.com who voted for him.

X-Men: First Class stars Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy took third and fourth places in the list, with Ewan McGregor taking fifth spot.

Chris Tilly, the website's entertainment editor, said: "As one of the UK's most celebrated TV characters of all-time, fans are thrilled about the prospect of a Doctor Who movie, with talk immediately turning to who should play the lead role.

"And with his combination of wit, intelligence, charm and eccentricity, Hugh Laurie was the runaway winner of our poll, with fans believing the Brit to be the perfect man to play the Time Lord on the big screen."

The planned movie, to be directed by the Harry Potter filmmaker, is expected to take "two to three years" to get right. It has not been decided if Matt Smith, as the current incarnation of the Doctor, would portray him in the feature.

"It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena," Yates told Variety.