I
Am Legend is a 2007 post-apocalyptic science fiction film directed by
Francis Lawrence and starring Will Smith. It is the third feature film
adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel of the same name, following
1964's The Last Man on Earth and 1971's The Omega Man.[2] Smith plays
virologist Robert Neville, who is immune to a vicious man-made virus
originally created to cure cancer. He works to create a remedy while
living in Manhattan in 2012, a city inhabited by violent victims of the
virus. The film's plot is an example of a "Last Man on Earth" story.
Warner
Bros. began developing I Am Legend in 1994, and various actors and
directors were attached to the project, though production was delayed
due to budgetary concerns related to the script. Production began in
2006 in New York City, filming mainly on location in the city, including
a $5 million scene[3] at the Brooklyn Bridge, the most expensive scene
ever filmed in the city at the time.
I Am Legend was released on
December 14, 2007, in the United States, and opened to the largest ever
box office (not counting for inflation) for a non-Christmas film
released in the U.S. in December. The film was the seventh highest
grossing film of 2007, earning $276 million USD domestically and $329
million internationally, for a total of $585 million.
Plot

In
December 2009, military virologist Lieutenant Colonel Robert Neville
(Will Smith), lost his wife Zoe (Salli Richardson) and daughter Marley
(Willow Smith) in a helicopter accident during the chaotic quarantine of
Manhattan as K.V. (Krippen Virus), a genetically-engineered variant of
the measles virus meant as a cancer cure, mutates into a lethal strain
and spread worldwide, killing 5.4 billion people (90% of humanity). In
September 2012, Neville is left as the last healthy human in New York
City. Of the 600 million survivors, only 12 million people were
naturally immune to the virus. The rest degenerated into bald, pale,
aggressive beings referred to as "Darkseekers,"[4] who hunted down the
immune humans as prey. The "Darkseekers" are so-called for hiding in
buildings and dark places during the day due to a painful intolerance to
UV radiation. The infected exhibit increased speed, agility,
aggression, and strength. These abilities stem from an increased
metabolic rate, which also consumes the infected with an overwhelming
hunger which makes them resort to cannibalism. Despite their primal
behavior, the Darkseekers seem to retain some basic problem-solving
intelligence, animalistic cunning, and the capacity to organize
themselves.
Neville has daily routine that includes experimentation
on infected rats to find a cure for the virus and trips through an
empty, decaying Manhattan to collect supplies from abandoned homes and
hunt deer that have moved into the city. He also waits each day for a
response to his continuous recorded AM radio broadcasts, which instruct
any uninfected survivors to meet him at midday at the South Street
Seaport. Neville's isolation is broken only by the companionship of his
female German Shepherd Samantha ("Sam") and interaction with mannequins
he has set up as patrons of a video store.
When one of his
experiments on rats shows a promising treatment, Neville sets a snare
trap and captures an infected woman, as an enraged Darkseeker, the alpha
male of the pack, attempts to rescue her. Neville notes this unusual
behavior in a series of video logs he records each day. Back in his
laboratory, located in the basement of his heavily fortified Washington
Square Park home, Neville attempts to cure the infected woman without
success.
The next day, after finding one of his mannequins was
apparently moved to the front of Grand Central Terminal, he is caught in
a trap and passes out. When Neville regains consciousness and manages
to get free, it is dusk and Neville and Sam are attacked by a pack of
infected dogs set on them by the alpha male. Although Neville and Sam
manage to kill the dogs, one of the infected dogs bites Sam. Although
dogs are unaffected by the airborne strain of the virus, they are
affected by the contact strain. Initially, Neville brings Sam home and
attempts to save her from infection by injecting her with a strain of
his serum. Neville sees a piece of Sam's fur fall, her pupils fully
dilated, and her gums red and inflamed. She lets out a low growl and
snaps at him, and Neville strangles her.
The next night, overcome by
grief and rage after burying Sam, Neville attacks a group of the
infected with his SUV, which had UV lights atop it, intending to end his
misery by killing as many as he can. Despite killing a large number of
Darkseekers, they overwhelm Neville and nearly kill him before he is
rescued by a pair of immune survivors, an adult woman named Anna (Alice
Braga) and a young boy named Ethan (Charlie Tahan), who have heard his
radio broadcasts. Anna and Ethan take the injured Neville back to his
home, where Anna explains that they are making their way to a putative
survivors' camp in Bethel, Vermont.
The next night, the alpha male
leads a large group of infected Darkseekers in an attack on the house,
having followed Anna and Neville back the night before. Anna had
forgotten to erase evidence of Neville's blood on the premises after his
injuries of the night prior. The Darkseekers begin by charging at the
house. Neville tries to use strong UV light to push them back, but the
infected easily tear through the lights by shattering them and continue
to charge. Neville then uses planted mines and manages to stave off the
infected. At first it works, but there are more Darkseekers than Neville
thought, and they start getting closer to Neville's home. Neville tries
to find Anna and Ethan. Before he can, he faces off one-on-one against
the alpha male, nearly losing before forcing him to fall back. Neville
realizes that this was just to distract him as another Darkseeker got
into the house and tore at the roof from the inside so that the other
infected can gain entry. After saving Anna and Ethan they hear the
infected climbing the house, so they retreat into the basement
laboratory. They seal themselves in a room with the infected woman,
where they discover that Neville's treatment is working: the subject has
reverted to a more human form. Unfortunately, the infected break in and
the alpha male begins to break through the plexiglass separating them.
Discovering that the last treatment has been successful, Neville draws a
vial of the infected woman's blood and gives it to Anna before shutting
Anna and Ethan in the coal chute. He uses an M67 hand grenade to wipe
out the attackers at the cost of his own life and the healed woman's.
Anna and Ethan escape to Vermont and locate the survivors' colony, where
Anna hands over the cure. In a voice-over, Anna claims that the
survivors are Neville's legacy, as his fight for a cure became legend.
Alternate ending
Due
to test audience's dislike of the film's original ending, several
scenes were significantly altered before the film's release, especially
the standoff between Neville and the infected in his laboratory. Visual
effects supervisor Janek Sirrs recounts the original ending starting
with the standoff: "At that point, Neville's – and the audience's –
assumptions about the nature of these creatures are shown to be
incorrect. We see that they have actually retained some of their
humanity. There is a very important moment between the alpha male and
Neville. The alpha male slapped his hand on the glass and smeared it
revealing a butterfly shaped imprint." Neville realizes that the alpha
male is identifying the infected woman he was experimenting on by a
butterfly tattoo, and that the alpha male wants her back. Neville puts
his gun down and returns the infected woman. Neville and the alpha male
then exchange stares; Neville apologizes to them, which the alpha male
acknowledges before the infected leave. The final shot follows Neville,
Anna, and Ethan as they drive away.[5]
Cast

Will Smith as Dr. Robert Neville
Alice Braga as Anna
Emma Thompson as Dr. Alice Krippin (Uncredited)
Charlie Tahan as Ethan
Salli Richardson as Zoe Neville
Willow Smith as Marley Neville
Dash Mihok as Infected alpha male.
Joanna Numata as Infected alpha female.
Darrell Foster as Mike
Abbey & Kona as Samantha (Sam), the dog.
Pat Fraley as Voice of President of the United States.
Mike Patton as Creature vocal effects.
Production

Development
The
late 1990s brought a reemergence of the science fiction horror
genre.[6] In 1995, Warner Bros. began developing the film project,
having owned the rights to Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend
since 1970[7] and The Omega Man. Mark Protosevich was hired to write the
script after the studio was impressed with his spec script of The Cell.
Protosevich's first draft took place in the year 2000 in San Francisco,
California, and contained many similarities with the finished film,
though the Darkseekers (Called 'Hemocytes') were civilized to the point
of the creatures in The Omega Man and Anna was a lone morphine addict;
as well as the fact that there was a Hemocyte character named
Christopher who joined forces with Neville. Warner Bros. immediately put
the film on the fast track, attaching Neal H. Moritz as producer.[6]
Actors
Tom Cruise, Michael Douglas,[8] and Mel Gibson[6] had been considered
to star in the film,[8] using a script by Protosevich and with Ridley
Scott as director; however, by June 1997 the studio's preference was for
actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In July, Scott and Schwarzenegger
finalized negotiations,[9] with production slated to begin the coming
September,[8] using Houston as a stand-in for the film's setting of Los
Angeles.[10] Scott had Protosevich replaced by a screenwriter of his own
choosing, John Logan, with whom he spent months of intensive work on a
number of different drafts. The Scott/Logan version of I Am Legend was a
bold, artistic mash of scifi action and psychological thriller, without
dialogue in the first hour and with a sombre ending.[6] The creatures
in Logan's Legend were similar to the Darkseekers of the finished film
in their animalistic, barbaric nature. The studio, fearing its lack of
commercial appeal and merchandising potential, began to worry about the
liberties they had given Scott – then on a negative streak of box office
disappointments – and urged the production team to reconsider the lack
of action in the screenplay. After an "esoteric" draft by writer Neal
Jimenez, Warner Bros. reassigned Protosevich to the project, reluctantly
working with Scott again.[6]
In December 1997, the project was
called into question when the projected budget escalated to $108 million
due to media and shareholder scrutiny of the studio in financing a
big-budget film.[11] Scott rewrote the script in an attempt to reduce
the film's budget by $20 million,[12] but in March 1998, the studio
canceled the project due to continued budgetary concerns,[13] and quite
possibly to the box office disappointment of Scott's last three films,
1492: Conquest of Paradise, White Squall, and G.I. Jane.[6] Likewise,
Schwarzenegger's recent films at the time (Eraser and Warner Bros. own
Batman & Robin) underperformed, and the studio's latest experiences
with big budget sci-fi movies Sphere and The Postman were negative as
well.[6] In August 1998, director Rob Bowman was attached to the
project,[14] with Protosevich hired to write a third all-new draft, far
more action-oriented than his previous versions,[6] but the director
(who reportedly wished for Nicolas Cage to play the lead) moved on to
direct Reign of Fire[15] and the project did not get off the ground.
In
March 2002, Schwarzenegger became the producer of I Am Legend,
commencing negotiations with Michael Bay to direct and Will Smith to
star in the film.[16] Bay and Smith were attracted to the project based
on a redraft that would reduce its budget.[17] However, the project was
shelved due to Warner Bros. president, Alan F. Horn's dislike of the
script.[18] In 2004, Akiva Goldsman was asked by head of production Jeff
Robinov to produce the film.[19] In September 2005, director Francis
Lawrence signed on to helm the project, with production slated to begin
in 2006. Guillermo del Toro was originally approached to direct by Smith
but turned it down in order to direct Hellboy II: The Golden Army.[20]
Lawrence, whose film Constantine was produced by Goldsman, was
fascinated by empty urban environments. He said, "Something's always
really excited me about that... to have experienced that much loss, to
be without people or any kind of social interaction for that long."[19]
Goldsman
took on the project as he admired the second I Am Legend film
adaptation, The Omega Man.[21] A rewrite was done to distance the
project from the other zombie films inspired by the novel,[16] as well
as from the recently released 28 Days Later (However Goldsman was
inspired by the scenes of a deserted London in the British horror film
to created the scenes of a deserted New York City.[21] A forty-page
scene-by-scene outline of the film was developed by May 2006. When
delays occurred on Will Smith's film Hancock, which was scheduled for
2007, it was proposed to switch the actor's films. This meant filming
would have to begin in sixteen weeks: production was green lit, using
Goldsman's script and the outline.[19] Elements from Protosevich's
script were introduced, while the crew consulted with experts on
infectious diseases and solitary confinement.[21] Rewrites continued
throughout filming, because of Smith's improvisational skills and
Lawrence's preference to keep various scenes silent.[19] The director
had watched Jane Campion’s film The Piano with a low volume so as to not
disturb his newborn son, and realized that silence could be very
effective cinema.[22]
Casting
Will Smith signed on to play Robert
Neville in April 2006.[23] He said he took on I Am Legend because he
felt it could be like "Gladiator [or] Forrest Gump—these are movies with
wonderful, audience-pleasing elements but also uncompromised artistic
value. [This] always felt like it had those possibilities to me."[21]
The actor found Neville to be his toughest acting challenge since
portraying Muhammad Ali in Ali (2001). He said that "when you're on your
own, it is kind of hard to find conflict." The film's dark tone and
exploration of whether Neville has gone insane during his isolation
meant Smith had to restrain himself from falling into a humorous routine
during takes.[24] To prepare for his role, Smith visited the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention in Georgia. He also met with a person
who had been in solitary confinement and a former prisoner of war.[25]
Smith compared Neville to Job, who lost his children, livelihood, and
health. Like the Book of Job, I Am Legend studies the questions, "Can he
find a reason to continue? Can he find the hope or desire to excel and
advance in life? Or does the death of everything around him create
imminent death for himself?"[16] He also cited an influence in Tom
Hanks' performance in Cast Away (2000).[21]
Abbey and Kona, both
three-year-old German Shepherd Dogs, played Neville's dog Sam.[26] The
rest of the supporting cast consists of Salli Richardson as Zoe,
Robert's wife,[27] and Alice Braga as a survivor named Anna.[27] Willow
Smith, Will Smith's daughter, makes her film debut as Marley, Neville's
daughter.[28] Emma Thompson has an uncredited role as Dr. Alice Krippin,
who appears on television explaining her vaccine for cancer that
mutates into the virus.[29] Singer Mike Patton provided the guttural
screams of the infected "hemocytes," and Dash Mihok provided the
character animation for the "alpha male" infected. There were several
filler characters with uncredited roles in old news broadcasts and
flashbacks, such as the unnamed President's voice, and the cast of The
Today Show.
Filming


The Brooklyn Bridge, where a $5 million scene was filmed


Marcy Avenue Armory
Akiva
Goldsman decided to move the story from Los Angeles to New York City to
take advantage of locations that would more easily show emptiness.[7]
Goldsman explained, "L.A. looks empty at three o'clock in the afternoon,
[but] New York is never empty . . . it was a much more interesting way
of showing the windswept emptiness of the world."[24] Warner Bros.
initially rejected this idea because of the logistics,[19] but Francis
Lawrence was determined to shoot on location, to give the film a natural
feel that would benefit from not shooting on soundstages. Lawrence went
to the city with a camcorder, and filmed areas filled with crowds.
Then, a special effects test was conducted to remove all those people.
The test had a powerful effect on studio executives.[22] Michael Tadross
convinced authorities to close busy areas such as the Grand Central
Terminal viaduct, several blocks of Fifth Avenue and Washington Square
Park.[19] The film was shot primarily in the anamorphic format, with
flashback scenes shot in Super 35.[30]
Filming began on September 23,
2006.[31] The Marcy Avenue Armory in Williamsburg was used for the
interior of Neville's home,[24] while Greenwich Village was used for the
exterior.[16] Other locations include the Tribeca section of Lower
Manhattan, the aircraft carrier Intrepid, the Kingsbridge Armory in the
Bronx and St. Patrick's Cathedral.[7] Weeds were imported from Florida
and were strewn across locations to make the city look like it had
overgrown with them.[19] The closure of major streets was controversial
with New Yorkers. Will Smith said, "I don't think anyone's going to be
able to do that in New York again any time soon. People were not happy.
That's the most middle fingers I've ever gotten in my career."[16]
A
bridge scene was filmed for six consecutive nights in January on the
Brooklyn Bridge to serve as a flashback scene in which New York's
citizens evacuate the city. Shooting the scene consumed $5 million of
the film's reported $150 million budget, which was likely the most
expensive shot in the city to date. The scene, which had to meet
requirements from fourteen government agencies, involved 250 crew
members and 1,000 extras, including 160 National Guard members.[32][33]
Also present were several Humvees, three Stryker armored vehicles, a
110-foot (34 m) cutter, a 41-foot (12 m) utility boat, and two 25-foot
(7.6 m) Response Boat Small craft, as well as other vehicles including
taxis, police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances.[34] Filming concluded
on March 31, 2007.[31]
Reshoots were conducted around November 2007.
Lawrence noted, "We weren't seeing fully rendered shots until about a
month ago. The movie starts to take on a whole other life. It's not
until later that you can judge a movie as a whole and go, 'Huh, maybe we
should shoot this little piece in the middle, or tweak this a little
bit.' It just so happened that our re-shoots revolved around the end of
the movie."[35]
Effects
A week into filming, Francis Lawrence felt
the infected (referred to as "Dark Seekers" or "hemocytes" in the
script), who were being portrayed by actors wearing prosthetics, were
not convincing. His decision to use computer-generated imagery (CGI)
resulted in an increased budget and extended post-production, although
the end results were not always well-received.[36][37] The concept
behind the infected was that their adrenal glands were open all of the
time and Lawrence explained, "They needed to have an abandon in their
performance that you just can’t get out of people in the middle of the
night when they’re barefoot. And their metabolisms are really spiked, so
they’re constantly hyperventilating, which you can’t really get actors
to do for a long time or they pass out."[19] The actors remained on set
to provide motion capture.[24] "The film's producers and sound people
wanted the creatures in the movie to sound somewhat human, but not the
standard," so Mike Patton, lead singer of Faith No More, was engaged to
provide the screams and howls of the infected.[38]
In addition, CGI
was used for the lions and deer in the film, and to erase pedestrians in
shots of New York. Workers visible in windows, spectators and moving
cars in the distance were all removed. In his vision of an empty New
York, Lawrence cited John Ford as his influence: "We didn't want to make
an apocalyptic movie where the landscape felt apocalyptic. A lot of the
movie takes place on a beautiful day. There's something magical about
the empty city as opposed to dark and scary that was the ideal that the
cast and crew wanted."[21]
Release

I Am Legend was originally
slated for a November 21, 2007 release in the United States and
Canada,[39] but was delayed to December 14, 2007.[40] The film opened on
December 26, 2007 in the United Kingdom,[41] and the Republic of
Ireland having been originally scheduled for January 4, 2008.[24]
In
December 2007, China banned the release of American films in the
country,[42] which is believed to have delayed the release of I Am
Legend. Will Smith spoke to the chairman of China Film Group about
securing a release date, later explaining, "We struggled very, very hard
to try to get it to work out, but there are only a certain amount of
foreign films that are allowed in."[25]
Marketing
A tie-in comic
from DC Comics and Vertigo Comics has been created, I Am Legend:
Awakening.[43] The project draws upon collaboration from Bill
Sienkiewicz, screenwriter Mark Protosevich, and author Orson Scott Card.
The son of the original book's author, Richard Christian Matheson, also
collaborated on the project. The project will advance from the comic to
an online format in which animated featurettes (created by the team
from Broken Saints) will be shown on the official website.[44]
In
October 2007, Warner Bros. Pictures in conjunction with the Electric
Sheep Company launched the online multiplayer game I Am Legend: Survival
in the virtual world Second Life. The game is the largest launched in
the virtual world in support of a film release, permitting people to
play against each other as the infected or the uninfected across a
replicated 60 acres (240,000 m2) of New York City.[45] The studio also
hired the ad agency Crew Creative to develop a website that would be
specifically viewable on the iPhone.[46]
Box office
I Am Legend
grossed $77,211,321 on its opening weekend in 3,606 theaters, averaging
$21,412 per venue, and placing it at the top of the box office. This set
a record for highest grossing opening for a film for the month of
December.[47] The film grossed $256,393,010 in North America and
$585,349,010 worldwide.[1] The film was the sixth highest grossing film
of 2007 in North America, and as of April 2010 stands among the top 100
all-time highest grossing films both domestically and worldwide
(unadjusted for ticket price inflation).[1]
Home media
The film
was released on DVD on March 18, 2008 in two editions: a one-disc
release, including the movie with four animated comics ("Death As a
Gift," "Isolation," "Sacrificing the Few for the Many," and "Shelter"),
and other DVD-ROM features; and a two-disc special edition that includes
all these extras, an alternative theatrical version of the movie with
an alternate ending,[48] and a digital copy of the film.[49] On the
high-definition end, the movie has been released on the Blu-ray Disc
format and HD DVD format along with the DVD release; with the HD-DVD
version being released later on April 8, 2008.[50] Both HD releases
include all the features available in the two-disc DVD edition.[50] A
three-disk Ultimate Collector's Edition was also released on December 9,
2008.[51]
The film has sold 7.04 million DVDs and earned $126.2
million in revenue, making it the sixth best-selling DVD of 2008.[52]
However, Warner Bros was reportedly "a little disappointed" with the
film's performance on the DVD market.[53]
Critical reception and awards

Reviews
were mostly favorable.[54] The consensus among favorable reviews was
that Will Smith's performance overcame questionable special effects.[55]
Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 69% of critics
gave the film positive write-ups, based on 204 reviews.[56] At the
similar website Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to each
review, the film has received an average score of 65, based on 37
reviews.[57]
A. O. Scott wrote that Will Smith gave a "graceful and
effortless performance" and also noted the "third-act collapse". He felt
that the movie "does ponder some pretty deep questions about the
collapse and persistence of human civilization".[58] Dana Stevens of
Slate wrote that the movie lost its way around the hour mark, noting
that "the Infected just aren't that scary."[29] NPR critic Bob Mondello
noted the film's subtext concerning global terrorism and that this
aspect made the film fit in perfectly with other, more direct cinematic
explorations of the subject.[59] Richard Roeper gave the film a positive
review on the television program At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper,
commending Will Smith as being in "prime form," also saying there are
"some amazing sequences" and that there was "a pretty heavy screenplay
for an action film."[60] The film has been criticized for diverging from
Matheson's novel, especially in its portrayal of a specifically
Christian theme.[61] Much of the negative criticism has concerned the
film's third act,[36][37][62] some critics favoring the alternative
ending in the DVD release.[48]
Popular Mechanics published an article on December 14, 2007[63] addressing some of the scientific issues raised by the film:
the rate of deterioration of urban structures, infrastructure, and survival of fauna and flora
the
plausibility of a retrovirus spreading out of control as depicted in
the film. (The measles virus depicted in the film, however, is not a
retrovirus, but is in fact a part of the Paramyxovirus family.)
the mechanics of the Brooklyn Bridge's destruction
The
magazine solicited reactions from Alan Weisman, author of The World
Without Us, virologist W. Ian Lipkin, M.D., and Michel Bruneau, Ph.D.,
comparing their predictions with the film's depictions. The article
raised the most questions regarding the virus' mutation and the medical
results, and pointed out that a suspension bridge like the Brooklyn
Bridge would likely completely collapse rather than losing only its
middle span. Neville's method of producing power using gasoline-powered
generators seemed the most credible: "This part of the tale is possible,
if not entirely likely," Popular Mechanics editor Roy Berendsohn says.
I
Am Legend earned four nominations for the Visual Effects Society
Awards,[64] and was also nominated for Outstanding Performance by a
Stunt Ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild Awards,[65] Outstanding Film
and Actor at the Image Awards,[66] and Best Sound at the Satellite
Awards. In June 2008, Will Smith won a Saturn Award for Best Actor.[67]
Will Smith also won the MTV Movie Awards for Best Male Performance.[68]
Prequel

Francis
Lawrence said in late 2008 that there would be a prequel and that Will
Smith would be reprising his role. He stated that this movie would
reveal what happens to Neville before the infected take over New York.
D. B. Weiss was recruited to write the script, while Lawrence would
direct "if we figure out the story". Smith stated the film would have
Neville and his team going from New York City to Washington, D.C. and
back again, as they made their last stand.[69] The film would again
explore the premise of what it's like to be alone, as Lawrence
explained, "... the tough thing is, how do we do that again and in a
different way?"[70]
Bibliography


I Am Legend, Richard Matheson, Tor Books; Reissue edition (October 30, 2007), ISBN 0-7653-1874-1
y