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I Am Legend (film)
Encyclopedia
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
. Smith plays virologist
Robert Neville, who is immune to a man-made virus
originally created to cure cancer
. He works to create a remedy while defending himself against the mutated
creatures created by the virus.
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 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 Canada
, 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 domestically and $329 million internationally, for a total of $585 million.
Robert Neville (Will Smith
) loses his wife Zoe (Salli Richardson
) and daughter Marley (Willow Smith
) in a helicopter accident during a chaotic quarantine of Manhattan
. A genetically-engineered
variant of the measles
virus created by Dr. Alice Krippin (Emma Thompson
), meant as a cure for cancer, had mutated into a lethal strain. It spreads throughout the world, killing 90% of humanity. By September 2012, Neville is the last healthy human in New York City
; the rest of the plague's survivors have degenerated into predatory, cannibalistic
beings referred to as "Darkseekers", who hunt the immune humans as prey. The Darkseekers are so named for hiding during daylight due to a painful intolerance of UV radiation.
Neville's daily routine includes experimenting on infected rats to find a cure for the virus and trips through a decaying Manhattan
to collect supplies from abandoned homes or hunt for the deer that have moved into the city. He also keeps vigil each day for a response to his continuous recorded AM radio broadcasts, which instruct any survivors to meet him at midday at the South Street Seaport
. Neville's isolation is broken only by the companionship of his German Shepherd Sam and interaction with mannequins he has set up as patrons of a video store.
When one of his rat experiments shows a promising treatment, Neville sets a snare trap and captures an infected woman. An enraged Darkseeker alpha male
attempts to rescue her, but is driven back by the sunlight. In his laboratory in the basement of his heavily fortified Washington Square Park home, Neville tries the new serum on the infected woman, seemingly without success.
The next day, after finding one of his mannequins ("Fred") out in the street in front of Grand Central Terminal
, he is caught in a snare trap and passes out. He regains consciousness at dusk and frees himself, but is attacked by a pack of infected dogs. Although Neville and Sam manage to kill the dogs, one bites Sam during the fight. Neville brings Sam home and attempts to save the dog by injecting a strain of his serum, but it is too late; a heartbroken Neville is forced to kill his only companion.
Overcome by grief and rage, Neville attacks a group of the infected the following night with his UV light equipped SUV. He manages to kill several Darkseekers, but they overwhelm and nearly kill him before he is rescued by a pair of immune humans, a woman named Anna (Alice Braga
) and a boy named Ethan (Charlie Tahan
), who followed his radio broadcasts. Anna and Ethan take him back to his home, where Anna explains that they are making their way to a survivors' camp in Bethel, Vermont
. Neville disputes that such a camp exists, and expresses his doubt when Anna says God
told her about it.
The following night, the alpha male leads a mob of Darkseekers in an attack on the house. Anna, who was unaware of Neville's precautions in covering his scent outside the house, inadvertently allows the Darkseekers to follow their trail and discover Neville's home. When the Darkseekers charge the house, Neville uses UV worklights to push the mob back, but the infected easily shatter the lights and continue their attack. Neville kills the first wave of Darkseekers with claymore mines, but finds himself defenseless against the second wave. Neville tries to find Anna and Ethan, but before he can, a Darkseeker enters and attacks him. The Darkseeker retreats upstairs and begins tearing a hole in the roof so other infected can get in.
After Neville saves Anna and Ethan, they hear the infected climbing the house, so they retreat into the basement laboratory. They seal themselves in a reinforced plexiglass room with the infected woman, and they discover that Neville's treatment is in fact working: the subject looks much more human. The infected break in and the alpha male starts throwing himself against the plexiglass, cracking the material. Realizing that the last treatment has been successful, Neville draws a vial of the infected woman's blood and gives it to Anna before shutting them inside a coal chute hidden in the back of the lab. He uses an M67 hand grenade
to wipe out the attackers at the cost of his own life. Anna and Ethan are later seen driving in Vermont and stopping at the gated entrance to the survivors' colony, where Anna hands over the antidote. In a voice-over
, Anna claims that the survivors are Neville's legacy, as his fight for a cure became legend.
Due to test audience's dislike of the film's original ending, several scenes were 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."
horror
genre. In 1995, Warner Bros.
began developing the film project, having owned the rights to Richard Matheson
's 1954 novel I Am Legend since 1970 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
.
Actors Tom Cruise
, Michael Douglas
, and Mel Gibson
had been considered to star in the film, 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, with production slated to begin the coming September, using Houston as a stand-in for the film's setting of Los Angeles
. 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. 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.
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. Scott rewrote the script in an attempt to reduce the film's budget by $20 million, but in March 1998, the studio canceled the project due to continued budgetary concerns, and quite possibly to the box office disappointment of Scott's last three films, 1492: Conquest of Paradise
, White Squall
, and G.I. Jane
. 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. In August 1998, director Rob Bowman was attached to the project, with Protosevich hired to write a third all-new draft, far more action-oriented than his previous versions, but the director (who reportedly wished for Nicolas Cage
to play the lead) moved on to direct Reign of Fire 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. Bay and Smith were attracted to the project based on a redraft that would reduce its budget. However, the project was shelved due to Warner Bros. president, Alan F. Horn
's dislike of the script. In 2004, Akiva Goldsman
was asked by head of production Jeff Robinov to produce the film. 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. 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."
Goldsman took on the project as he admired the second I Am Legend film adaptation, The Omega Man. A rewrite was done to distance the project from the other zombie
films inspired by the novel, 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 create the scenes of a deserted New York City
. A forty-page scene-by-scene outline of the film was developed by May 2006. When delays occurred on 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. Elements from Protosevich's script were introduced, while the crew consulted with experts on infectious diseases and solitary confinement
. Rewrites continued throughout filming, because of Smith's improvisational skills and Lawrence's preference to keep various scenes silent. 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.
[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." 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. 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
. 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?" He also cited an influence in Tom Hanks
' performance in Cast Away
(2000).
Abbey and Kona, both three-year-old German Shepherd Dog
s, played Neville's dog Sam. The rest of the supporting cast consists of Salli Richardson
as Zoe, Robert's wife, and Alice Braga
as a survivor named Anna. Willow Smith
, Will Smith's daughter, makes her film debut as Marley, Neville's daughter. Emma Thompson
has an uncredited role as Dr. Alice Krippin, who appears on television explaining her vaccine for cancer that mutates into the virus. Singer Mike Patton
provided the guttural screams of the infected "hemocytes," and Dash Mihok
provided the character animation for the infected "alpha male". 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.
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. 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." Warner Bros. initially rejected this idea because of the logistics, 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. Michael Tadross convinced authorities to close busy areas such as the Grand Central Terminal
viaduct, several blocks of Fifth Avenue and Washington Square Park
. The film was shot primarily in the anamorphic format
, with flashback scenes shot in Super 35.
Filming began on September 23, 2006. The Marcy Avenue Armory in Williamsburg was used for the interior of Neville's home, while Greenwich Village
was used for the exterior. Other locations include the Tribeca section of Lower Manhattan, the aircraft carrier Intrepid
, the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx and St. Patrick's Cathedral. Weeds were imported from Florida
and were strewn across locations to make the city look like it had overgrown with them. 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 anytime soon. People were not happy. That's the most middle fingers I've ever gotten in my career."
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 in a mass exodus
. 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. Also present were several Humvees
, three Stryker armored vehicles, a 110 feet (33.5 m) cutter
, a 41 feet (12.5 m) utility boat
, and two 25 feet (7.6 m) Response Boat Small craft, as well as other vehicles including taxis, police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances. Filming concluded on March 31, 2007. CGI
was used to depict the main spans of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge
collapsing as missiles from over passing military jets blew them up to prevent a mass exodus
leaving Manhattan.
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."
(CGI) resulted in an increased budget and extended post-production
, although the end results were not always well-received. The concept behind the infected was that their adrenal gland
s 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." The actors remained on set to provide motion capture
. "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.
In addition, CGI was used for the lion
s 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."
having been originally scheduled for January 4, 2008.
In December 2007, China banned the release of American films in the country, 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."
and Vertigo Comics has been created, I Am Legend: Awakening. 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.
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 (242,811.6 m²) of New York City. The studio also hired the ad agency Crew Creative to develop a website that would be specifically viewable on the iPhone
.
of the film. 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. Both HD releases include all the features available in the two-disc DVD edition. A three-disk Ultimate Collector's Edition was also released on December 9, 2008.
The film has sold 7.04 million DVDs and earned $126.2 million in revenue, making it the sixth best-selling DVD of 2008. However, Warner Bros was reportedly "a little disappointed" with the film's performance on the DVD market.
. The music was composed by James Newton Howard
.
reported that 69% of critics gave the film positive write-ups, based on 204 reviews. 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.
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". Dana Stevens
of Slate
wrote that the movie lost its way around the hour mark, noting that "the Infected just aren't that scary." 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. 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." The film has been criticized for diverging from Matheson's novel, especially in its portrayal of a specifically Christian
theme. Much of the negative criticism has concerned the film's third act, some critics favoring the alternative ending in the DVD
release.
Popular Mechanics
published an article on December 14, 2007 addressing some of the scientific issues raised by the film:
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, and was also nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild Awards
, Outstanding Film and Actor at the Image Awards, and Best Sound at the Satellite Awards
. In June 2008, Will Smith won a Saturn Award
for Best Actor.
Will Smith also won the MTV Movie Awards
for Best Male Performance.
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. 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?"
As of May 3, 2011, Francis Lawrence is not going to film the prequel and thinks "it's never gonna happen" at all.
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
directed by Francis Lawrence
Francis Lawrence
Francis Lawrence is an American music video and film director.-Life and career:Lawrence was born in Vienna, Austria. His father is a physicist who taught at California State University, Northridge and his mother is V.P. Technology at a PR agency. He moved to Los Angeles at the age of three...
and starring Will Smith
Will Smith
Willard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. , also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer, and rapper. He has enjoyed success in television, film and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood...
. It is the third feature film adaptation of Richard Matheson
Richard Matheson
Richard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and I Am Legend, all of which have been...
's 1954 novel of the same name, following 1964's The Last Man on Earth and 1971's The Omega Man
The Omega Man
The Omega Man is a 1971 American science fiction film directed by Boris Sagal and starring Charlton Heston. It is based on the novel I Am Legend by American writer Richard Matheson...
. Smith plays virologist
Virology
Virology is the study of viruses and virus-like agents: their structure, classification and evolution, their ways to infect and exploit cells for virus reproduction, the diseases they cause, the techniques to isolate and culture them, and their use in research and therapy...
Robert Neville, who is immune to a man-made virus
Virus
A virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms. Viruses infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea...
originally created to cure cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
. He works to create a remedy while defending himself against the mutated
Mutation
In molecular biology and genetics, mutations are changes in a genomic sequence: the DNA sequence of a cell's genome or the DNA or RNA sequence of a virus. They can be defined as sudden and spontaneous changes in the cell. Mutations are caused by radiation, viruses, transposons and mutagenic...
creatures created by the virus.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
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
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, filming mainly on location in the city, including a $5 million scene at the Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River...
, 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
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and opened to the largest ever box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
(not counting for inflation
Inflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
) for a non-Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
film released in the U.S. in December. The film was the seventh highest grossing film of 2007, earning $276 million domestically and $329 million internationally, for a total of $585 million.
Plot
In December 2009, military virologist Lieutenant ColonelLieutenant Colonel (United States)
In the United States Army, United States Air Force, and United States Marine Corps, a lieutenant colonel is a field grade military officer rank just above the rank of major and just below the rank of colonel. It is equivalent to the naval rank of commander in the other uniformed services.The pay...
Robert Neville (Will Smith
Will Smith
Willard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. , also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer, and rapper. He has enjoyed success in television, film and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood...
) loses his wife Zoe (Salli Richardson
Salli Richardson
Salli Elise Richardson-Whitfield is an American television and film actress. She is known for her role on Eureka and her voice acting on Gargoyles.-Early life:...
) and daughter Marley (Willow Smith
Willow Smith
Willow Camille Reign Smith , often known simply as Willow, is an American child actress and singer. She is the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, and the younger sister of Jaden Smith. Smith made her acting debut in 2007 in the film I Am Legend and later appeared in Kit Kittredge: An...
) in a helicopter accident during a chaotic quarantine of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. A genetically-engineered
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
variant of the measles
Measles
Measles, also known as rubeola or morbilli, is an infection of the respiratory system caused by a virus, specifically a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus. Morbilliviruses, like other paramyxoviruses, are enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses...
virus created by Dr. Alice Krippin (Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson is a British actress, comedian and screenwriter. Her first major film role was in the 1989 romantic comedy The Tall Guy. In 1992, Thompson won multiple acting awards, including an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, for her performance in the British drama Howards End...
), meant as a cure for cancer, had mutated into a lethal strain. It spreads throughout the world, killing 90% of humanity. By September 2012, Neville is the last healthy human in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
; the rest of the plague's survivors have degenerated into predatory, cannibalistic
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
beings referred to as "Darkseekers", who hunt the immune humans as prey. The Darkseekers are so named for hiding during daylight due to a painful intolerance of UV radiation.
Neville's daily routine includes experimenting on infected rats to find a cure for the virus and trips through a decaying Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
to collect supplies from abandoned homes or hunt for the deer that have moved into the city. He also keeps vigil each day for a response to his continuous recorded AM radio broadcasts, which instruct any survivors to meet him at midday at the South Street Seaport
South Street Seaport
The South Street Seaport is a historic area in the New York City borough of Manhattan, located where Fulton Street meets the East River, and adjacent to the Financial District. The Seaport is a designated historic district, distinct from the neighboring Financial District...
. Neville's isolation is broken only by the companionship of his German Shepherd Sam and interaction with mannequins he has set up as patrons of a video store.
When one of his rat experiments shows a promising treatment, Neville sets a snare trap and captures an infected woman. An enraged Darkseeker alpha male
Alpha (biology)
In social animals, the alpha is the individual in the community with the highest rank. Where one male and one female fulfill this role, they are referred to as the alpha pair...
attempts to rescue her, but is driven back by the sunlight. In his laboratory in the basement of his heavily fortified Washington Square Park home, Neville tries the new serum on the infected woman, seemingly without success.
The next day, after finding one of his mannequins ("Fred") out in the street in front of Grand Central Terminal
Grand Central Terminal
Grand Central Terminal —often incorrectly called Grand Central Station, or shortened to simply Grand Central—is a terminal station at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
, he is caught in a snare trap and passes out. He regains consciousness at dusk and frees himself, but is attacked by a pack of infected dogs. Although Neville and Sam manage to kill the dogs, one bites Sam during the fight. Neville brings Sam home and attempts to save the dog by injecting a strain of his serum, but it is too late; a heartbroken Neville is forced to kill his only companion.
Overcome by grief and rage, Neville attacks a group of the infected the following night with his UV light equipped SUV. He manages to kill several Darkseekers, but they overwhelm and nearly kill him before he is rescued by a pair of immune humans, a woman named Anna (Alice Braga
Alice Braga
Alice Braga Moraes is a Brazilian actress. She has appeared in several Brazilian films, most notably as Angélica in 2002's highly acclaimed City of God and as Karina in 2005's Lower City...
) and a boy named Ethan (Charlie Tahan
Charlie Tahan
Charles "Charlie" Tahan is an American child actor.Tahan was born and raised in Glen Rock, New Jersey. His sister is actress Daisy Tahan, and he has an older brother named Willie as well. Tahan portrayed Ethan in I Am Legend, appeared in Burning Bright, and co-starred with Zac Efron in the 2010...
), who followed his radio broadcasts. Anna and Ethan take him back to his home, where Anna explains that they are making their way to a survivors' camp in Bethel, Vermont
Bethel, Vermont
Bethel is a town in Windsor County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,968 at the 2000 census. The town includes the locations of Bethel-Gilead, East Bethel, Lilliesville, Lympus , and West Bethel...
. Neville disputes that such a camp exists, and expresses his doubt when Anna says God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
told her about it.
The following night, the alpha male leads a mob of Darkseekers in an attack on the house. Anna, who was unaware of Neville's precautions in covering his scent outside the house, inadvertently allows the Darkseekers to follow their trail and discover Neville's home. When the Darkseekers charge the house, Neville uses UV worklights to push the mob back, but the infected easily shatter the lights and continue their attack. Neville kills the first wave of Darkseekers with claymore mines, but finds himself defenseless against the second wave. Neville tries to find Anna and Ethan, but before he can, a Darkseeker enters and attacks him. The Darkseeker retreats upstairs and begins tearing a hole in the roof so other infected can get in.
After Neville saves Anna and Ethan, they hear the infected climbing the house, so they retreat into the basement laboratory. They seal themselves in a reinforced plexiglass room with the infected woman, and they discover that Neville's treatment is in fact working: the subject looks much more human. The infected break in and the alpha male starts throwing himself against the plexiglass, cracking the material. Realizing that the last treatment has been successful, Neville draws a vial of the infected woman's blood and gives it to Anna before shutting them inside a coal chute hidden in the back of the lab. He uses an M67 hand grenade
M67 grenade
The M67 grenade is a fragmentation hand grenade used by the United States Military and Canadian Forces, where it is referred to as the C13. The M67 is a replacement for the M61 grenade used during Vietnam and the older Mk 2 "pineapple" grenade used since World War II.-Composition:The M67 Grenade...
to wipe out the attackers at the cost of his own life. Anna and Ethan are later seen driving in Vermont and stopping at the gated entrance to the survivors' colony, where Anna hands over the antidote. In a voice-over
Voice-over
Voice-over is a production technique where a voice which is not part of the narrative is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations...
, Anna claims that the survivors are Neville's legacy, as his fight for a cure became legend.
Alternate ending
In the film's original ending, Neville realizes that the alpha male is identifying the 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 the Darkseekers; the alpha male acknowledges his apology, and the infected leave. The final shot follows Neville, Anna, and Ethan as they drive away towards Vermont with the antidote.Due to test audience's dislike of the film's original ending, several scenes were 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."
Cast
- Will SmithWill SmithWillard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. , also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer, and rapper. He has enjoyed success in television, film and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood...
as Dr. Robert Neville - Alice BragaAlice BragaAlice Braga Moraes is a Brazilian actress. She has appeared in several Brazilian films, most notably as Angélica in 2002's highly acclaimed City of God and as Karina in 2005's Lower City...
as Anna - Charlie TahanCharlie TahanCharles "Charlie" Tahan is an American child actor.Tahan was born and raised in Glen Rock, New Jersey. His sister is actress Daisy Tahan, and he has an older brother named Willie as well. Tahan portrayed Ethan in I Am Legend, appeared in Burning Bright, and co-starred with Zac Efron in the 2010...
as Ethan - Emma ThompsonEmma ThompsonEmma Thompson is a British actress, comedian and screenwriter. Her first major film role was in the 1989 romantic comedy The Tall Guy. In 1992, Thompson won multiple acting awards, including an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, for her performance in the British drama Howards End...
as Dr. Alice Krippin, the doctor who creates the cancer cure that inadvertently destroys mankind - Salli RichardsonSalli RichardsonSalli Elise Richardson-Whitfield is an American television and film actress. She is known for her role on Eureka and her voice acting on Gargoyles.-Early life:...
as Zoe Neville - Willow SmithWillow SmithWillow Camille Reign Smith , often known simply as Willow, is an American child actress and singer. She is the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, and the younger sister of Jaden Smith. Smith made her acting debut in 2007 in the film I Am Legend and later appeared in Kit Kittredge: An...
as Marley Neville - Dash MihokDash MihokDashiell "Dash" Mihok is an American actor.-Life and career:Mihok was born in New York City, New York, the son of actors Andrea and Raymond Thorne . He attended the Bronx High School of Science and was raised in Greenwich Village. While at the Bronx High School of Science, Dash played baseball as...
as Infected alpha male - Joanna Numata as Infected alpha female
- Darrell Foster as Mike
- Abbey & Kona as Sam, the dog.
- Pat FraleyPat FraleyPatrick "Pat" Fraley is an American voice actor, who is best known as the voice of Krang, Casey Jones and numerous other characters from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...
as Voice of the President of the United StatesPresident of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.... - Mike PattonMike PattonMichael Allan "Mike" Patton is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and actor, best known as the lead singer of the metal/experimental rock band Faith No More. He has also sung for Mr...
as Creature
Development
The late 1990s brought a reemergence of the science fictionScience fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
genre. In 1995, Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
began developing the film project, having owned the rights to Richard Matheson
Richard Matheson
Richard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and I Am Legend, all of which have been...
's 1954 novel I Am Legend since 1970 and The Omega Man
The Omega Man
The Omega Man is a 1971 American science fiction film directed by Boris Sagal and starring Charlton Heston. It is based on the novel I Am Legend by American writer Richard Matheson...
. Mark Protosevich
Mark Protosevich
Mark Protosevich is an American screenwriter currently under contract with Warner Bros.Protosevich was born in Chicago, Illinois.-Filmography:*The Cell *Poseidon*I Am Legend*Thor...
was hired to write the script after the studio was impressed with his spec script
Spec script
A spec script, also known as a speculative screenplay, is a non-commissioned unsolicited screenplay. It is usually written by a screenwriter who hopes to have the script optioned and eventually purchased by a producer, production company, or studio....
of The Cell
The Cell
The Cell is a 2000 science fiction psychological thriller film directed by Tarsem Singh, and starring Jennifer Lopez in the lead role.-Plot:...
. Protosevich's first draft took place in the year 2000 in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, 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
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
addict
Substance dependence
The section about substance dependence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not use the word addiction at all. It explains:...
; 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
Neal H. Moritz
Neal H. Moritz is an American film producer. He is the founder of Original Film.-Life and career:He has over 70 films to his credit...
as producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
.
Actors Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
, Michael Douglas
Michael Douglas
Michael Kirk Douglas is an American actor and producer, primarily in movies and television. He has won three Golden Globes and two Academy Awards; first as producer of 1975's Best Picture, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and as Best Actor in 1987 for his role in Wall Street. Douglas received the...
, and Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...
had been considered to star in the film, using a script by Protosevich and with Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
as director; however, by June 1997 the studio's preference was for actor Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
. In July, Scott and Schwarzenegger finalized negotiations, with production slated to begin the coming September, using Houston as a stand-in for the film's setting of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Scott had Protosevich replaced by a screenwriter of his own choosing, John Logan
John Logan (writer)
John David Logan is an American screenwriter, playwright and film producer.-Personal life:Logan was born in San Diego on September 24, 1961. His parents emigrated to the US from Northern Ireland via Canada. The youngest of three children, he has an older brother and sister...
, 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. 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
Neal Jimenez
Neal Jimenez is a screenwriter and film director. He is best known for the writing of his macabre 1980's film River's Edge. He was a member of the dramatic jury at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994...
, Warner Bros. reassigned Protosevich to the project, reluctantly working with Scott again.
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. Scott rewrote the script in an attempt to reduce the film's budget by $20 million, but in March 1998, the studio canceled the project due to continued budgetary concerns, and quite possibly to the box office disappointment of Scott's last three films, 1492: Conquest of Paradise
1492: Conquest of Paradise
1492: Conquest of Paradise is an epic 1992 European adventure/drama film directed by Ridley Scott and written by Roselyne Bosch, which tells the story of the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus and the effect this had on the indigenous people...
, White Squall
White Squall (film)
White Squall is a 1996 American drama feature film, directed by Ridley Scott.-Plot:The film is based on the fate of the brigantine Albatross, which sank on 2 May 1961, allegedly because of a white squall. The film relates the ill-fated school sailing trip led by Dr. Christopher B. Sheldon , whom...
, and G.I. Jane
G.I. Jane
G.I. Jane is a 1997 American action film directed by Ridley Scott, produced by Largo Entertainment, Scott Free Productions and Caravan Pictures, distributed by Hollywood Pictures and starring Demi Moore and Viggo Mortensen. The film tells the fictional story of the first woman to undergo training...
. Likewise, Schwarzenegger's recent films at the time (Eraser
Eraser (film)
Eraser is a 1996 American action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Caan and Vanessa L. Williams. It was directed by Chuck Russell. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Sound Effects Editing in 1996.-Plot:...
and Warner Bros. own Batman & Robin) underperformed, and the studio's latest experiences with big budget sci-fi movies Sphere
Sphere (film)
Sphere is a 1998 science fiction psychological thriller film, starring Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, and Samuel L. Jackson. Sphere was based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park and The Lost World...
and The Postman
The Postman (film)
The Postman is an American post-apocalyptic epic film based on the 1985 novel of the same name by David Brin. It was filmed in northeastern Washington , Fidalgo Island, Washington, central Oregon and Tucson, Arizona, and was directed by Kevin Costner, who also stars in the film...
were negative as well. In August 1998, director Rob Bowman was attached to the project, with Protosevich hired to write a third all-new draft, far more action-oriented than his previous versions, but the director (who reportedly wished for Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage is an American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona , The Rock , Face/Off , Gone in 60 Seconds , Adaptation , National Treasure , Ghost Rider , Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , and...
to play the lead) moved on to direct Reign of Fire 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
Michael Bay
Michael Benjamin Bay is an American film director and producer. He is known for directing high-budget action films characterized by their fast edits, stylistic visuals and substantial practical special effects...
to direct and Will Smith
Will Smith
Willard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. , also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer, and rapper. He has enjoyed success in television, film and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood...
to star in the film. Bay and Smith were attracted to the project based on a redraft that would reduce its budget. However, the project was shelved due to Warner Bros. president, Alan F. Horn
Alan F. Horn
Alan F. Horn is the President & COO of Warner Bros. Entertainment. Horn also sits on the board of directors of Univision.Prior to Warner Bros., Horn served in various positions at 20th Century Fox and at Norman Lear's television production company, Tandem Productions...
's dislike of the script. In 2004, Akiva Goldsman
Akiva Goldsman
Akiva J. Goldsman from Walker Valley, New York is an American screenwriter and film producer. He received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the 2001 film, A Beautiful Mind, which also won the Oscar for Best Picture....
was asked by head of production Jeff Robinov to produce the film. In September 2005, director Francis Lawrence
Francis Lawrence
Francis Lawrence is an American music video and film director.-Life and career:Lawrence was born in Vienna, Austria. His father is a physicist who taught at California State University, Northridge and his mother is V.P. Technology at a PR agency. He moved to Los Angeles at the age of three...
signed on to helm the project, with production slated to begin in 2006. Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro is a Mexican director, producer, screenwriter, novelist and designer. He is mostly known for his acclaimed films, Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy film franchise. He is a frequent collaborator with Ron Perlman, Federico Luppi and Doug Jones...
was originally approached to direct by Smith but turned it down in order to direct Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Lawrence, whose film Constantine
Constantine (film)
Constantine is a 2005 American action horror film directed by Francis Lawrence as his directorial debut, starring Keanu Reeves as John Constantine, with Rachel Weisz, Shia LaBeouf, Tilda Swinton, and Djimon Hounsou...
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."
Goldsman took on the project as he admired the second I Am Legend film adaptation, The Omega Man. A rewrite was done to distance the project from the other zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
films inspired by the novel, as well as from the recently released 28 Days Later
28 Days Later
28 Days Later is an acclaimed 2002 British horror film directed by Danny Boyle. The screenplay was written by Alex Garland, and the film stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, and Christopher Eccleston...
(However Goldsman was inspired by the scenes of a deserted London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in the British horror film to create the scenes of a deserted New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. A forty-page scene-by-scene outline of the film was developed by May 2006. When delays occurred on Smith's film Hancock
Hancock (film)
Hancock is a 2008 American action-comedy superhero film directed by Peter Berg and starring Will Smith, Jason Bateman, and Charlize Theron. It tells the story of a vigilante superhero, John Hancock from Los Angeles whose reckless actions routinely cost the city millions of dollars...
, 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. Elements from Protosevich's script were introduced, while the crew consulted with experts on infectious diseases and solitary confinement
Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...
. Rewrites continued throughout filming, because of Smith's improvisational skills and Lawrence's preference to keep various scenes silent. The director had watched Jane Campion’s film The Piano
The Piano
The Piano is a 1993 New Zealand drama film about a mute pianist and her daughter, set during the mid-19th century in a rainy, muddy frontier backwater on the west coast of New Zealand. The film was written and directed by Jane Campion, and stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin...
with a low volume so as to not disturb his newborn son, and realized that silence could be very effective cinema.
Casting
Will Smith signed on to play Robert Neville in April 2006. He said he took on I Am Legend because he felt it could be like "GladiatorGladiator (2000 film)
Gladiator is a 2000 historical epic film directed by Ridley Scott, starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Ralf Möller, Oliver Reed, Djimon Hounsou, Derek Jacobi, John Shrapnel and Richard Harris. Crowe portrays the loyal Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius, who is betrayed...
[or] Forrest Gump
Forrest Gump
Forrest Gump is a 1994 American epic comedy-drama romance film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom. The film was directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Tom Hanks, Robin Wright and Gary Sinise...
—these are movies with wonderful, audience-pleasing elements but also uncompromised artistic value. [This] always felt like it had those possibilities to me." The actor found Neville to be his toughest acting challenge since portraying Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
in Ali
Ali (film)
Ali is a 2001 American biographical film directed by Michael Mann. The film tells the story of boxing icon Muhammad Ali, played by Will Smith, from 1964 to 1974 featuring his capture as of the heavyweight title from Sonny Liston , his conversion to Islam, criticism of the Vietnam War, banishment...
(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. To prepare for his role, Smith visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services headquartered in Druid Hills, unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, in Greater Atlanta...
in Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
. He also met with a person who had been in solitary confinement and a former prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
. Smith compared Neville to Job, who lost his children, livelihood, and health. Like the Book of Job
Book of Job
The Book of Job , commonly referred to simply as Job, is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job, his trials at the hands of Satan, his discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, his challenge to God, and finally a response from God. The book is a...
, 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?" He also cited an influence in Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
' performance in Cast Away
Cast Away
Cast Away is a 2000 drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks as a FedEx employee stranded on an uninhabited island after his plane crashes in the South Pacific. The film depicts his successful attempts to survive on the island using remnants of his plane's cargo, as well as his...
(2000).
Abbey and Kona, both three-year-old German Shepherd Dog
German Shepherd Dog
The German Shepherd Dog , also known as an Alsatian or just the German Shepherd, is a breed of large-sized dog that originated in Germany. The German Shepherd is a relatively new breed of dog, with its origin dating to 1899. As part of the Herding Group, the German Shepherd is a working dog...
s, played Neville's dog Sam. The rest of the supporting cast consists of Salli Richardson
Salli Richardson
Salli Elise Richardson-Whitfield is an American television and film actress. She is known for her role on Eureka and her voice acting on Gargoyles.-Early life:...
as Zoe, Robert's wife, and Alice Braga
Alice Braga
Alice Braga Moraes is a Brazilian actress. She has appeared in several Brazilian films, most notably as Angélica in 2002's highly acclaimed City of God and as Karina in 2005's Lower City...
as a survivor named Anna. Willow Smith
Willow Smith
Willow Camille Reign Smith , often known simply as Willow, is an American child actress and singer. She is the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, and the younger sister of Jaden Smith. Smith made her acting debut in 2007 in the film I Am Legend and later appeared in Kit Kittredge: An...
, Will Smith's daughter, makes her film debut as Marley, Neville's daughter. Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson is a British actress, comedian and screenwriter. Her first major film role was in the 1989 romantic comedy The Tall Guy. In 1992, Thompson won multiple acting awards, including an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, for her performance in the British drama Howards End...
has an uncredited role as Dr. Alice Krippin, who appears on television explaining her vaccine for cancer that mutates into the virus. Singer Mike Patton
Mike Patton
Michael Allan "Mike" Patton is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and actor, best known as the lead singer of the metal/experimental rock band Faith No More. He has also sung for Mr...
provided the guttural screams of the infected "hemocytes," and Dash Mihok
Dash Mihok
Dashiell "Dash" Mihok is an American actor.-Life and career:Mihok was born in New York City, New York, the son of actors Andrea and Raymond Thorne . He attended the Bronx High School of Science and was raised in Greenwich Village. While at the Bronx High School of Science, Dash played baseball as...
provided the character animation for the infected "alpha male". 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
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to take advantage of locations that would more easily show emptiness. 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." Warner Bros. initially rejected this idea because of the logistics, 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
Camcorder
A camcorder is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage...
, 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. Michael Tadross convinced authorities to close busy areas such as the Grand Central Terminal
Grand Central Terminal
Grand Central Terminal —often incorrectly called Grand Central Station, or shortened to simply Grand Central—is a terminal station at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
viaduct, several blocks of Fifth Avenue and Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,900 public parks. At 9.75 acres , it is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity...
. The film was shot primarily in the anamorphic format
Anamorphic format
Anamorphic format is a term that can be used either for: the cinematography technique of capturing a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film, or other visual recording media, with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio; or a photographic projection format in which the original image requires an...
, with flashback scenes shot in Super 35.
Filming began on September 23, 2006. The Marcy Avenue Armory in Williamsburg was used for the interior of Neville's home, while Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
was used for the exterior. Other locations include the Tribeca section of Lower Manhattan, the aircraft carrier Intrepid
USS Intrepid (CV-11)
USS Intrepid , also known as The Fighting "I", is one of 24 s built during World War II for the United States Navy. She is the fourth US Navy ship to bear the name. Commissioned in August 1943, Intrepid participated in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, most notably the Battle...
, the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx and St. Patrick's Cathedral. Weeds were imported from Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
and were strewn across locations to make the city look like it had overgrown with them. 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 anytime soon. People were not happy. That's the most middle fingers I've ever gotten in my career."
A bridge scene was filmed for six consecutive nights in January on the Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River...
to serve as a flashback scene in which New York's citizens evacuate the city in a mass exodus
Exodus
The Book of Exodus is the second book of the Hebrew Bible, and of the five books of the Torah...
. 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. Also present were several Humvees
High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle
The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle , better known as the Humvee, is a military 4WD motor vehicle created by AM General. It has largely supplanted the roles formerly served by smaller Jeeps such as the M151 MUTT, the M561 "Gama Goat", their M718A1 and M792 ambulance versions, the CUCV,...
, three Stryker armored vehicles, a 110 feet (33.5 m) cutter
United States Coast Guard Cutter
Cutter is the term used by the United States Coast Guard for its commissioned vessels. A Cutter is or greater in length, has a permanently assigned crew, and has accommodations for the crew to live aboard...
, a 41 feet (12.5 m) utility boat
USCG utility boat
The USCG Utility Boat, or UTB, is a standard utility boat used by the United States Coast Guard for a variety of inshore missions. The 41 ft UTB is designed to operate under moderate weather and sea conditions where its speed and maneuverability make it an ideal platform.There are presently...
, and two 25 feet (7.6 m) Response Boat Small craft, as well as other vehicles including taxis, police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances. Filming concluded on March 31, 2007. CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
was used to depict the main spans of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge
Manhattan Bridge
The Manhattan Bridge is a suspension bridge that crosses the East River in New York City, connecting Lower Manhattan with Brooklyn . It was the last of the three suspension bridges built across the lower East River, following the Brooklyn and the Williamsburg bridges...
collapsing as missiles from over passing military jets blew them up to prevent a mass exodus
Exodus
The Book of Exodus is the second book of the Hebrew Bible, and of the five books of the Torah...
leaving Manhattan.
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."
Effects
A week into filming, Francis 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 imageryComputer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
(CGI) resulted in an increased budget and extended post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
, although the end results were not always well-received. The concept behind the infected was that their adrenal gland
Adrenal gland
In mammals, the adrenal glands are endocrine glands that sit atop the kidneys; in humans, the right suprarenal gland is triangular shaped, while the left suprarenal gland is semilunar shaped...
s 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." The actors remained on set to provide motion capture
Motion capture
Motion capture, motion tracking, or mocap are terms used to describe the process of recording movement and translating that movement on to a digital model. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, and medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robotics...
. "The film's producers and sound people wanted the creatures in the movie to sound somewhat human, but not the standard," so Mike Patton
Mike Patton
Michael Allan "Mike" Patton is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and actor, best known as the lead singer of the metal/experimental rock band Faith No More. He has also sung for Mr...
, lead singer of Faith No More
Faith No More
Faith No More is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed originally as Faith No Man in 1981 by bassist Billy Gould, keyboardist Wade Worthington, vocalist Michael Morris and drummer Mike Bordin. A year later when Worthington was replaced by keyboardist Roddy Bottum, and Mike...
, was engaged to provide the screams and howls of the infected.
In addition, CGI was used for the lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
s and deer
Deer
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
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
John Ford
John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
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."
Release
I Am Legend was originally slated for a November 21, 2007 release in the United States and Canada, but was delayed to December 14, 2007. The film opened on December 26, 2007 in the United Kingdom, and the Republic of IrelandRepublic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
having been originally scheduled for January 4, 2008.
In December 2007, China banned the release of American films in the country, which is believed to have delayed the release of I Am Legend. Will Smith spoke to the chairman of China Film Group
China Film Group
China Film Group Corporation , abbreviated as CFGC, is the largest and most influential state-run film enterprise in China.-History:The predecessor China Film Corporation was established in 1949...
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."
Marketing
A tie-in comic from DC ComicsDC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
and Vertigo Comics has been created, I Am Legend: Awakening. The project draws upon collaboration from Bill Sienkiewicz
Bill Sienkiewicz
Boleslav Felix Robert "Bill" Sienkiewicz [pronounced sin-KEV-itch] is an Eisner Award-winning American artist and writer best known for his comic book work, primarily for Marvel Comics' The New Mutants and Elektra: Assassin...
, screenwriter Mark Protosevich, and author Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the...
. 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
Broken Saints
Broken Saints is an award-winning, partially Flash-animated film series by Brooke Burgess, Ian Kirby, and Andrew West. First published in 2001, it is one of the earliest examples of a motion comic. Like a comic, characters on the most part remain in static poses and dialogue is indicated by speech...
) will be shown on the official website.
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
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
. 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 (242,811.6 m²) of New York City. The studio also hired the ad agency Crew Creative to develop a website that would be specifically viewable on the iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
.
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. The film grossed $256,393,010 in North America and $585,349,010 worldwide. 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).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, and a digital copyDigital copy
Digital Copy provides consumers who purchase a film on DVD or Blu-ray Disc with an additional, digital copy of the movie for devices capable of operating with a file in contrast to a DVD.-Features:...
of the film. On the high-definition end, the movie has been released on the Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
format and HD DVD
HD DVD
HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
format along with the DVD release; with the HD-DVD version being released later on April 8, 2008. Both HD releases include all the features available in the two-disc DVD edition. A three-disk Ultimate Collector's Edition was also released on December 9, 2008.
The film has sold 7.04 million DVDs and earned $126.2 million in revenue, making it the sixth best-selling DVD of 2008. However, Warner Bros was reportedly "a little disappointed" with the film's performance on the DVD market.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack for I Am Legend was released on January 15, 2008, under the record label Varèse SarabandeVarèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums as well as newer releases by artists no longer under a contract...
. The music was composed by James Newton Howard
James Newton Howard
James Newton Howard is an American composer best known for his scores to motion pictures. He is one of the most popular and respected composers for cinema, and has scored over 100 films...
.
Critical reception and awards
Reviews were mostly favorable. The consensus among favorable reviews was that Will Smith's performance overcame questionable special effects. Review aggregate website Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 69% of critics gave the film positive write-ups, based on 204 reviews. At the similar website Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a rating out of 100 to each review, the film has received an average
Arithmetic mean
In mathematics and statistics, the arithmetic mean, often referred to as simply the mean or average when the context is clear, is a method to derive the central tendency of a sample space...
score of 65, based on 37 reviews.
A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...
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". Dana Stevens
Dana Stevens (critic)
Dana Shawn Stevens is a movie critic at Slate magazine. She is also a regular on the magazine's weekly cultural podcast the Culture Gabfest.-Life and career:Stevens grew up in Scarsdale, New York...
of Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
wrote that the movie lost its way around the hour mark, noting that "the Infected just aren't that scary." NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
critic Bob Mondello noted the film's subtext concerning global terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
and that this aspect made the film fit in perfectly with other, more direct cinematic explorations of the subject. Richard Roeper
Richard Roeper
Richard E. Roeper is an American columnist and film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times and now a co-host on The Roe Conn Show on WLS-AM...
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." The film has been criticized for diverging from Matheson's novel, especially in its portrayal of a specifically Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
theme. Much of the negative criticism has concerned the film's third act, some critics favoring the alternative ending in the DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
release.
Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics is an American magazine first published January 11, 1902 by H. H. Windsor, and has been owned since 1958 by the Hearst Corporation...
published an article on December 14, 2007 addressing some of the scientific issues raised by the film:
- the rate of deterioration of urban structures, infrastructureInfrastructureInfrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...
, and survival of faunaFaunaFauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...
and floraFloraFlora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:... - the plausibility of a retrovirusRetrovirusA retrovirus is an RNA virus that is duplicated in a host cell using the reverse transcriptase enzyme to produce DNA from its RNA genome. The DNA is then incorporated into the host's genome by an integrase enzyme. The virus thereafter replicates as part of the host cell's DNA...
spreading out of control as depicted in the film. (The measlesMeaslesMeasles, also known as rubeola or morbilli, is an infection of the respiratory system caused by a virus, specifically a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus. Morbilliviruses, like other paramyxoviruses, are enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses...
virus depicted in the film, however, is not a retrovirus, but is in fact a part of the ParamyxovirusParamyxovirusParamyxoviruses are viruses of the Paramyxoviridae family of the Mononegavirales order; they are negative-sense single-stranded RNA viruses responsible for a number of human and animal diseases.-Genera:*Subfamily Paramyxovirinae**Genus Avulavirus Paramyxoviruses (from Greek para-, beyond, -myxo-,...
family.) - the mechanics of the Brooklyn Bridge's destruction
The magazine solicited reactions from Alan Weisman
Alan Weisman
Alan H. Weisman is an American author, professor, and journalist.- Education and career :Weisman holds both a bachelor's and master's degree in literature from Northwestern University...
, author of The World Without Us
The World Without Us
The World Without Us is a non-fiction book about what would happen to the natural and built environment if humans suddenly disappeared, written by American journalist Alan Weisman and published by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books. It is a book-length expansion of Weisman's own February 2005 Discover...
, virologist
Virology
Virology is the study of viruses and virus-like agents: their structure, classification and evolution, their ways to infect and exploit cells for virus reproduction, the diseases they cause, the techniques to isolate and culture them, and their use in research and therapy...
W. Ian Lipkin, M.D.
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
, and Michel Bruneau, Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
, 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
Suspension bridge
A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. Outside Tibet and Bhutan, where the first examples of this type of bridge were built in the 15th century, this type of bridge dates from the early 19th century...
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
Visual Effects Society
The Visual Effects Society is the entertainment industry's only organization representing the full breadth of visual effects practitioners including artists, animators, technologists, model makers, educators, studio leaders, supervisors, PR/marketing specialists and producers in all areas of...
Awards, and was also nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild Awards
Screen Actors Guild Awards
A Screen Actors Guild Award is an accolade given by the Screen Actors Guild to recognize outstanding performances by its members. The statuette given, a nude male figure holding both a mask of comedy and a mask of tragedy, is called "The Actor"...
, Outstanding Film and Actor at the Image Awards, and Best Sound at the Satellite Awards
Satellite Awards
The Satellite Awards are an annual award given by the International Press Academy. The awards were originally known as the Golden Satellite Awards.- Film :*Best Actor – Drama*Best Actor – Musical or Comedy*Best Actress – Drama...
. In June 2008, Will Smith won a Saturn Award
Saturn Award
The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
for Best Actor.
Will Smith also won the MTV Movie Awards
MTV Movie Awards
The MTV Movie Awards is a film awards show presented annually on MTV . It also contains movie parodies that used official movie footage with hosts and other celebrities and music performances. The nominees are decided by producers and executives at MTV. Winners are decided online by the general...
for Best Male Performance.
Deleted 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 the film would reveal what happens to Neville before the infected take over New York. D. B. WeissD. B. Weiss
Daniel B. Weiss is an American author. His debut novel Lucky Wander Boy was themed around video games and has since been linked with the screen adaptations of various science-fiction and fantasy stories...
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
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
and back again, as they made their last stand. 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?"
As of May 3, 2011, Francis Lawrence is not going to film the prequel and thinks "it's never gonna happen" at all.