I Am Legend (2007) on Netflix
PG-1320071h 41mActionAdventureDrama
A genetically engineered measles virus meant to cure cancer wiped out most of humanity. Three years later, immune virologist Robert Neville lives alone in Manhattan with his dog Sam.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.2/10888,412 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes68%
Trailer
Plot summary
Dr. Alice Krippin announces a measles virus she altered to attack cancer cells, and the treatment spreads worldwide. The virus mutates; it kills most of the population and turns others into infected mutants who cannot bear sunlight. Three years later Manhattan is empty. Robert Neville, a U.S. Army virologist who could not stop the outbreak, is immune and lives in a fortified house with his German Shepherd, Sam. By day he hunts, collects supplies, works on a vaccine and broadcasts a recorded radio message asking survivors to meet him at the water at noon. At night he bars the house and the infected roam.
Cast
- Pedro Mojicaas Sergeant
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about I Am Legend (2007)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The flashback of New Yorkers evacuating was shot over six consecutive nights on a pier south of the Brooklyn Bridge, at a cost of $5 million of the film's reported $150 million budget, likely the most expensive shoot in New York City to date.
- Before Will Smith took the part, Warner Bros. considered Tom Cruise, Michael Douglas and Mel Gibson to star, with Ridley Scott directing, but by June 1997 the studio preferred Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- Ridley Scott's abandoned version, written with John Logan, was a sci-fi psychological thriller with no dialogue in its first hour; Warner Bros., fearing it lacked commercial appeal and merchandising potential, pressed for more action.
- In December 1997 the projected budget escalated to $108 million; Ridley Scott rewrote the script to cut $20 million, but Warner Bros. canceled the project in March 1998, partly over the box-office failures of Scott's last three films and Arnold Schwarzenegger's underperforming recent films.
- Closing major streets for the shoot was controversial with New Yorkers; Will Smith said nobody would be able to do that in New York again soon and that it was the most middle fingers he had ever gotten in his career.
- Akiva Goldsman moved the story from Los Angeles to New York City to show the world's emptiness more easily, but Warner Bros. rejected the idea over logistics; Francis Lawrence wanted a natural feel rather than soundstages and filmed crowds in the city with a camcorder.
- A week into filming, Francis Lawrence decided the actors in prosthetics were not convincing, so the infected were made with CGI instead, which increased the budget and extended post-production.
- Francis Lawrence got the idea that silence could be effective cinema after watching Jane Campion's The Piano at low volume so as to not disturb his newborn son.
