Friday, December 14, 2007

I Am Legend opens today

This is a movie I've been anticipating for a long, long time.

I'm a fan of Richard Matheson's original novel, the 1964 Vincent Price adaptation The Last Man on Earth, and the 1971 Charlton Heston re-adaptation The Omega Man. Each one has various bits that I enjoy, and each in their own way speak as much about their times as they do about the original story.

About 8 years ago I heard some buzz about another remake. Ridley Scott was rumored to be directing and the leading actor under consideration at the time was Arnold Schwarzenegger. A script, written by Mark Protosevich, was floating around on the Internet so I found a copy and gave it a read.

I was impressed by the script and the way the action was updated. I thought it would make a decent version of the story. My other conclusion was that Arnold wouldn't be right for it -- my choice would have been Kurt Russell.

Then a couple of years ago, the remake was being talked about again with Will Smith in the lead -- and it actually got produced! I see that Protosevich is still listed as a writer, but now Akiva Goldsman is sharing that title. My guess is that he was called in to do some polishing and update it with Will Smith in mind. I wonder how much of Protosevich's original is still left?

You can read Protosevich's original script for yourself and compare it to the movie. I also see now that there is a John Logan version out there too, but I haven't read it. Both Logan and Protosevich are from Chicago. Coincidence?

In a later post I'll discuss other post-apocalyptic and dystopian movies.

Bonus link: A page showing other posters for the I Am Legend ad campaign. They are shots of various world cities after the disaster. I haven't seen these anywhere else. Scary stuff but well done!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We need to see this movie...
after we finish all the episodes of Firefly.