I Am Legend

I Am Legend is a 2007 American post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film directed by Francis Lawrence and starring Will Smith. It is the third film adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend, following 1964's The Last Man on Earth and 1971's The Omega Man.[3] Smith plays Robert Neville, possibly Earth's only human survivor of a man-made virus. He works to create a cure, but is stalked by nocturnal mutant survivors of the plague.

Warner Bros. Pictures began developing I Am Legend in 1994, and various actors and directors have been attached to the project, though it never entered production due to budgetary concerns. 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. Warner Bros. launched a tie-in comic and an online multiplayer game on Second Life as part of its marketing campaign. I Am Legend was released December 14, 2007 in the United States. Despite mixed reviews, its opening was the largest ever for a film released in the U.S. during December.
A genetically reengineered measles virus called Krippin Virus or KV, created as a cancer cure by Dr. Alice Krippin (Emma Thompson), rapidly spreads and kills 90% of the people on the planet by the end of 2009; fewer than one percent are immune. The remaining survivors are infected, initially exhibiting the early symptoms of rabies, but then degenerate into an animal state driven by hunger and blind rage.

Military virologist Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the last healthy human survivor in New York City and possibly the world. Neville is watched by the "Infected" people, who react painfully to UV radiation, forcing them to be nocturnal. Avoiding sunlight, they hide in buildings during the day (in groups called "hives" by Neville), swarming out at night. Dogs and rats are also susceptible to the virus. By 2012, Neville has not seen another normal human being since the virus' outbreak three years earlier, and suspects that the Infected have succeeded in killing the remainder of the immune survivors. Neville is outnumbered by the infected and running out of time as he seeks a cure.

His isolation broken only by the companionship of his daughter's dog Samantha (Sam), Neville's life centers around a strict, daily routine of working out, researching a cure, foraging for food and supplies, and security, but he has also leisure time in which he plays golf and watches recorded news and entertainment broadcasts on TV. He is regularly haunted by flashbacks of his wife's and daughter's deaths while being evacuated during the chaotic, militarily enforced quarantine of Manhattan in 2009. He also waits each day for a response to his continuous radio broadcasts to any uninfected survivors. One day his research appears to find a promising treatment, so he captures and treats an infected woman, but without apparent success. Shortly after, he is ensnared and attacked by the Infected. He escapes, but is forced to put down Sam because she has been bitten by an infected dog and begins to transform into one of them. Despondent over the death of Sam, Neville suicidally attacks a group of Infected that night and is nearly killed. He is saved by a pair of survivors from Maryland who bring him back to his fortified home in Washington Square Park. Anna (Alice Braga) and young boy Ethan (Charlie Tahan), immune like Neville, had survived the chaos aboard a Red Cross evacuation ship. Hearing Neville's broadcasts, they have come with plans to take him with them to a rumored survivors colony in Vermont. Anna tells Neville that God sent her to bring him to the colony. Neville refuses to believe her, saying that there cannot be a God in a world with such suffering and mass death.

The Infected attack the house that night and overrun its defenses. Neville, Anna, and Ethan retreat into the basement laboratory, sealing themselves in with the Infected woman on which Neville was experimenting. Discovering that the last treatment has successfully cured the woman, Neville realizes that he has to find a way to pass it on to other survivors before they are killed. He quickly draws a vial of blood from the patient and gives it to Anna. He then pushes Anna and Ethan into a coal chute and sacrifices himself with a hand grenade, killing the attacking Infected.

Surviving the explosion, Anna and Ethan escape to Vermont and locate the fortified survivors colony. Anna gives the cure to the guards. In the voice-over, she states that Neville's cure enabled humanity to survive and rebuild, establishing his legend.

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Production

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Development

In 1994, Warner Bros. began developing the film project, having owned the rights to Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend since 1970.[4] In June 1997, director Ridley Scott and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger entered talks with Warner Bros. for I Am Legend, based on a script by Mark Protosevich. Actors Tom Cruise and Michael Douglas were previously considered to star in the film.[5] The following July, Scott and Schwarzenegger finalized negotiations with the studio.[6] Production slated to begin the coming September,[5] with Houston as a stand-in for the film's setting of Los Angeles.[7] 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.[8] Scott rewrote the script in an attempt to reduce the film's budget[9] by $20 million, but in March 1998, the studio canceled the project due to continued budgetary concerns.[10] In August 1998, director Rob Bowman was attached to I Am Legend,[11] but he moved on to direct Reign of Fire.[12]

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.[13] However, the project was shelved due to Warner Bros. president Alan F. Horn's dislike of the script.[14] In 2004, Akiva Goldsman was asked by head of production Jeff Robinov to produce the project.[15] In September 2005, director Francis Lawrence signed on to helm the project, with production slated to begin in 2006.[16] Guillermo del Toro was also approached to direct.[17] 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."[15]

Goldsman rewrote the screenplay to be closer to the second I Am Legend film adaptation, The Omega Man, of which he was a major fan.[18] The rewrite was also done to distance the film from the numerous zombie films inspired by the novel.[17] A forty-page scene-by-scene outline of the film was developed by May 2006. When delays occurred on Will Smith's film Hancock (2008), 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 greenlit, using Goldsman's script and the outline.[15] Elements from Protosevich's script were introduced, while the crew consulted with experts on infectious diseases and solitary confinement.[18] Rewrites continued throughout filming, because of Smith's improvisational skills and Lawrence's preference to keep various scenes silent.[15] The director had watched The Pianist with a low volume so as to not disturb his newborn son, and realized that silence could be very effective cinema.[19]

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Casting

Will Smith signed on to play Robert Neville in April 2006.[20] He said he took on I Am Legend because he felt it could be like "Gladiator [or] Forrest Gump — these are movies with wonderful, audience-pleasing elements but also uncompromised artistic value. [This] always felt like it had those possibilities to me."[18] 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.[21] 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.[22] 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?"[17] He also cited an influence in Tom Hanks' performance in Cast Away (2000).[18]

Abbey, a three-year-old German Shepherd, played Neville's dog. Another dog was used for scenes where Neville plays fetch with his companion, as Abbey refused to perform these scenes.[23] The rest of the supporting cast consists of Salli Richardson as Zoe, Robert's wife,[24] and Alice Braga as a character named Anna.[24] Willow Smith, Will Smith's daughter, makes her film debut as Marley, Neville's daughter.[25] Emma Thompson has an uncredited role as a doctor on television, explaining the vaccine for cancer that mutates into the virus.[26]

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Filming
The Brooklyn Bridge served as a location in I Am Legend, at which there was a $5 million scene filmed, the most expensive scene to date in New York City.

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.[4] 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."[21] Warner Brothers initially rejected this idea because of the logistics,[15] but Francis Lawrence was determined to shoot on location, to give the film a natural feel that would not benefit from 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.[19] Michael Tadross convinced authorities to close busy areas such as the Grand Central Terminal viaduct, several blocks of Fifth Avenue and Washington Square Park.[15]

Filming began on September 23, 2006.[27] The Marcy Avenue Armory in Williamsburg was used for the interior of Neville's home,[21] while Greenwich Village was used for the exterior.[17] Other locations including the Tribeca section of Lower Manhattan, the aircraft carrier Intrepid, the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx and St. Paul's Cathedral.[4] Weeds were imported from Florida and were strewn across locations to make the city look like it had overgrown with them.[15] The closure of major streets was controversial with New Yorkers. Will Smith said, "I don't think anyone's going to be able to do that in New York again any time soon. People were not happy. That's the most middle fingers I've ever gotten in my career."[17]

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 denizens evacuate the city. Shooting the scene cost the studio $5 million, which was 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.[28] Also present were several Humvees, three Stryker armored vehicles, a 110-foot cutter, a 41-foot utility boat, and two 25-foot Response Boat Small craft.[2] Filming concluded on March 31, 2007.[27]

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 only 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."[29]

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Effects

A week into filming, Francis Lawrence felt the infected, who were being portrayed with actors wearing prosthetics, were not convincing. His decision to use computer-generated imagery meant post-production had to be extended and the budget increased. 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."[15] While the infected become vampires in the novel, the film depicts them as "dark seekers" (Anna's term for them)[18] who consume living flesh, with a design inspired by the concept of their adrenal glands being open all the time. The actors remained on set to provide motion capture.[21]

In addition, CGI was used for the lions and deer in the film, and to erase pedestrians in shots of New York. Workers visible in windows, spectators and moving cars in the distance were all removed. In his vision of an empty New York, Lawrence cited John Ford as his influence: "We didn't want to make an apocalyptic movie where the landscape felt apocalyptic. A lot of the movie takes place on a beautiful day. There's something magical about the empty city as opposed to dark and scary."

Via:  www.wikipedia.com