Watch The First 5-Minutes of Showtime's Sci-Fi Series THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH
Showtime has released the first five minutes of its upcoming sci-fi series titled The Man Who Fell To Earth. This clip introduces us to Chiwetel Ejiofor's alien character, “who arrives on Earth at a turning point in human evolution and must confront his own past to determine our future.”
The opening scene gives us a look at Ejiofor's transformation from a lizard-like alien, who crash lands on Earth, to a successful Steve Jobs-like businessman, a “tech-God Willy Wonka”. In the clip we see him addressing a huge audience where he will unveil some new technology that he’s created, but before he does, he wants to share his story. The story of everything he lost and how he had to learn how to become a human.
The series is based on the book by Walter Tevis and inspired by David Bowie’s iconic 1976 film of the same name. It also stars Bill Nighy in the role of Thomas Newton, the main character of the novel and the character who was played by David Bowie in the original film. The rest of the cast includes Naomie Harris (Moonlight, No Time to Die) as Justin Falls, a brilliant scientist and engineer who must conquer her own demons in the race to save two worlds, along with Jimmi Simpson, Rob Delaney, and Sonya Cassidy.
Alex Kurtzman serves as co-showrunner on the new series with Jenny Lumet and John Hlavin. When talking about the series, Kurtzman said that Ejiofor plays "an entirely different character with an entirely different story. He is of the same alien species that Bowie was in the film, but he's not the same character — and he wasn't the first one here. He arrives on our planet looking specifically for her. She has such extraordinary ability inside of her, but is afraid to engage with the part of herself that can make the world better."
As for the character Newton, he was the first alien to arrive on earth over 40 years ago. “Alone and desperate, Newton summons Faraday to complete his original mission. But Newton’s time marooned among human beings has cost him everything, possibly even his sanity.”
When talking about the kind of story they wanted to tell, producer Alex Kurtzman shared, “One thing that I really responded to was the loneliness of [Bowie's] character in both the novel and the film. They're about this extraordinary loneliness, and how human loneliness can ultimately destroy you. I loved that feeling in the work that had been made, [but] it was not the story that I wanted to tell, and it was not the story that Jenny wanted to tell. We were interested in integrating that loneliness, but I think we wanted to tell a story that's ultimately much more uplifting."
The Man Who Fell To Earth series will start streaming on April 24th, 2022.