I Am Legend

[annuin]

So it seems that in December another film version of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend will appear in theatres. I'd say grace the screens, but I'm unsure of whether it'll grace them or come lumbering across them.

I started watching the trailer before I checked the imdb.com listing to see whether it was actually based on Matheson's book. From the first bits in the trailer, where a missile hits Manhattan, I began to think that it wasn't. And then Will Smith's voice comes over the images with "My name is Robert Neville" and then I knew it was.

So, this ought to be interesting to say the least. I'm just hoping that they remain faithful to the core of the book, because that was just such a really awesome story, with an excellent ending. If they fuck up the ending, it renders the entire thing pointless.

Trailer here:

http://imdb.com/title/tt0480249/trailers-screenplay-1-10-2

Comments

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

I do realise that film and books are different media, and I do allow for differences between the two when watching adaptations, specifically because I understand that a movie needs to condense into a much shorter timeslot things that books can take time unfolding.

The thing though with I Am Legend though is that if you change the ending, then the title as well as the point of the piece becomes moot really. And in this case they're keeping the book's title for the movie, rather than calling it The Last Man On Earth or The Omega Man.

And really, it's such an awesome book, doing a movie that would actually be close to the book would be excellent. It is a story that ought to lend well to a screen adaptation all things considered.

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

I always thought it pretty cinematic, which made me wonder about Matheson's changes for the script - but, then, the author gets to play around with his ideas in ways that no-one else could without being screamed at (Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere springs to mind, though it was done the other way around - and I wonder what his Death: The High Cost Of Living will be like?).

I am, you know, a real hypocrite. I love the schlocky old versions of War of the Worlds, with the action transplanted to 1950s America, and the hero becoming a scientist with his "academic" female assistant who knows nothing about anything; but Spielberg's attempt at the same story I call ABOMINATION! Same with Bram Stoker's Dracula - no it fucking was not!! Great B- movie, but not Bram Stoker's Dracula. I suppose that what happens is that I forgive many (not all) old films because age has given them a certain charm, and they do not push my buttons in the way that films made in my adulthood do.

I am a hypocrite :)