The Man Who Fell to Earth Showrunner Didn't Want to Chase Success of David Bowie Movie
At the beginning of the year, Showtime released the first full-length trailer for their reimagining of The Man Who Fell to Earth, which finally premiered in April. The new series is based on the same story that inspired the 1976 film starring David Bowie and stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Naomie Harris, Kate Mulgrew, and Bill Nighy. The show has three episodes to go, but it currently stands on Rotten Tomatoes with an 85% critics score and a 78% audience score. Recently, showrunner Jenny Lumet took part in The Hollywood Reporter's showrunner roundtable and talked about not wanting to chase the success of Bowie's version of The Man Who Fell to Earth.
"I suffer from a lack of daunt," Lumet explained. "That shit doesn't occur to me. I'm like, 'Oh, yeah. Sure. Piece of cake.' That's what I was thinking. But we knew we couldn't chase David Bowie. Besides being a creative mistake, it would earn us every death threat on the planet. We originally presented it as this intellectual exercise, when it was at Hulu, and they wisely were like, 'Yeah, well, what's the show?' So we got more and more human. And then we wrote 10 scripts, which you don't usually get the luxury to do, but it was a worldwide pandemic. I don't know if the show, in any world, would've gotten made if we didn't have 10 scripts and Chiwetel Ejiofor, Naomie Harris, and Bill Nighy. This is the shit that you want to do! But, in short, I don't know how the fuck we got this show on the air," she added with a laugh.
Lumet is serving as The Man Who Fell to Earth's showrunner alongside Alex Kurtzman who directed four episodes of the series. John Hlavin is an executive producer along with Rola Bauer, Tim Halkin, Sarah Timberman, Carl Beverly, and Heather Kadin. Aaron Baiers co-executive produces.
"Walter Tevis' visionary novel gave us a tech god Willy Wonka from another planet, brought to life by David Bowie's legendary performance, that foretold Steve Jobs' and Elon Musk's impacts on our world," Kurtzman and Lumet said in a statement announcing the series. "The series will imagine the next step in our evolution, seen through the eyes of an alien who must learn what it means to become human, even as he fights for the survival of his species."
The Man Who Fell to Earth's next episode drops on June 19th.