David Bowie’s The Man Who Fell To Earth gets TV spinoff

The 1976 film The Man Who Fell To Earth, starring David Bowie as an alien, is being turned into a TV series for CBS. It will be ‘the next chapter’ and will pick up the story where the movie left off.

Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek) is tapped as the director and will start writing the script this September. He hopes the series will air by the end of 2020.

“Some strings will connect to both the novel and the film, but if you haven’t seen the film or haven’t read the novel, it’s fine,” he said in an interview with Variety. “You’ll have an experience that’s entirely singular.”

“It’s a globe-hopping show,” he added. “It’s the story of an alien who travels the world to understand who we are as a species. Just from a pure production point of view, that’s not something we want to rush… This is something that needs to be done right which means it doesn’t need to be done fast.”

As for who will be the lead actor, that remains to be seen.