The Man Who Fell to Earth is a 1987 television pilot

Television pilot

A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...

 created for a proposed television series based on Walter Tevis

Walter Tevis

Walter Stone Tevis was an American novelist and short story writer. Three of his six novels were adapted into major films: The Hustler, The Color of Money and The Man Who Fell to Earth...

's 1963 novel and Nicolas Roeg

Nicolas Roeg

Nicolas Jack Roeg, CBE, BSC is an English film director and cinematographer.-Life and career:Roeg was born in London, the son of Mabel Gertrude and Jack Nicolas Roeg...

's 1976 film

The Man Who Fell to Earth (film)

The Man Who Fell to Earth is a 1976 British science fiction film directed by Nicolas Roeg.The film is based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis, about an extraterrestrial who crash lands on Earth seeking a way to ship water to his planet, which is suffering from a severe drought...

.
There are some distinct changes from the novel. Most notably, the names of the main characters have been changed - while the World Enterprises retains its name from the source material, Thomas Jerome Newton's name has been changed to John Dory (Lewis Smith), Oliver Farnsworth's name becomes Felix Hawthorne (James Laurenson), and Nathan Bryce's name becomes Vernon Gage (Bruce McGill).