In the mighty halls of Development Hell there are few filing cabinets as large or as bursting with unused scripts and yellowed casting sheets as I Am Legend.
So the news that Will Smith is having a second crack at starring in a version of Richard Matheson’s tale of an Earth ravaged by a blood disease that turns sufferers into, well, basically vampires, and the last man left alive who fights them, has us feeling distinctly sceptical.
That said, Warners Brothers is convinced it has the team in place at last: Smith is on a pay-or-play contract, which means the studio executives will be eager to get him to start work next year in New York (because they'll have to pay his fee even if the film never happens). And they’ve already attached Constantine director Francis Lawrence and Da Vinci Code writer Akiva Goldsman to the film.
The Hitch star previously tried to get the Legend adaptation up and running in 2002, when he was planning to star for his Bad Boys director Michael Bay. But that version collapsed. As did a long-running attempt in 1997, which would have seen Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ridley Scott shoot a $108 million budgeted epic. That one was scuttled by the mounting budget and the dual kick in Schwarzenegger’s career stomach from Batman & Robin and Jingle All The Way.
Goldsman is adapting a fresh script from Mark Protosevich’s original screenplay. Over the years, the likes of Gladiator’s John Logan have tried to turn it into a workable, affordable film, but to no avail. And let’s not forget that two cinematic versions of Matheson’s story have already been made: Vincent Price’s The Last Man On Earth and Chuck Heston’s The Omega Man.
Can it work again at last? That sound you hear is an office full of studio executives nervously twisting rosary beads or preparing to sacrifice interns to the great gods of Hollywood to ensure that it does...