The Man Who Fell To Earth Timeline Explained: Is It A Remake Or Sequel?

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Showtime has revived The Man Who Fell To Earth but is the new TV series a revival, reboot, or a sequel? Based upon Walter Tevis' 1963 novel of the same name, Showtime'sThe Man Who Fell To Earth is the latest adaptation, following the 1976 cult classic film starring David Bowie and directed by Nicholas Roeg. The book was also adapted into a TV movie in 1987. Showtime's 10-episode The Man Who Fell To Earth series stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Naomie Harris, and it's written and produced by Clarice's Jenny Lumet and Alex Kurtzman, who also directs.

The version ofThe Man Who Fell To Earth that audiences are most familiar with is the David Bowie movie. The beloved rock star, who died in 2016, played Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien who came to Earth to save his home planet, Anthea, from a catastrophic drought. The film is famed for its mind-bending visuals and Bowie's striking and ethereal performance. Newton builds a company called World Enterprises Corporation but he is arrested and imprisoned by the U.S. government, and their experiments left him blind and an addict. Newton eventually escapes and sends a message back to Althea but his mission on Earth is a failure and he never sent the water Anthea desperately needed.

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For Showtime's The Man Who Fell To Earth, Kurtzman and Lumet opted to make a continuation of the David Bowie film. Instead of a reboot or a revival, the producers refer to their version of The Man Who Fell To Earth as «a 45-year-later sequel.» The Man Who Fell To Earth TV series canonically acknowledges the events of the film, which happened in the late 1970s, and picks up the story in the present day with new characters. In Showtime's The Man