Titan Comics has announced plans to adapt the 1976 British science fiction film The Man Who Fell to Earth into a graphic novel by writer Dan Watters and artist Dev Pramanik.
The film starred rock icon David Bowie as an alien searching for water to save his planet, and finds wealth and fame on Earth — a parable about the current climate crisis.
“The Man Who Fell to Earth is a masterpiece of a film with an awful lot to say; about men, about the Earth, and lots of things in between,” Watters said. “There are ideas in the film, about climate crises and corporate greed, that are more relevant now than they were when Nicolas Roeg set out to make it. And now here we are. I think it’s high time to look at the world through Thomas Newton’s mismatched eyes all over again. Perhaps he’ll see something we’ve been missing.”
Here’s the description from Titan:
Based on the classic science fiction novel by Walter Tevis (The Queen’s Gambit, The Hustler), The Man Who Fell to Earth is the 1976 science fiction movie by STUDIOCANAL, directed by Nicolas Roeg and written by Paul Mayersberg. It stars David Bowie, Candy Clark, Buck Henry and Rip Torn.
The story follows an extra-terrestrial called Thomas Jerome Newton (played in the movie by David Bowie) who lands on Earth in search of water to save his dying home planet. Using his advanced scientific knowledge, Thomas becomes incredibly rich thanks to dozens of inventions his company releases. He uses his wealth to search for a way to transport water back to his home planet, but as his wealth and his fame grows, Thomas becomes a target of interest to the U.S. Government who begin to investigate him.
Here’s some preview art:
The graphic novel will fall to Earth this fall.