I Am Legend

I Am Legend may refer to:

I Am Legend (film)

I Am Legend is a 2007 American post-apocalyptic film directed by Francis Lawrence and starring Will Smith, who plays US Army virologist Robert Neville. The story is set in New York City after a virus has wiped out most of mankind, leaving Neville as the last human in New York, other than nocturnal mutants. Neville is immune to the virus, which was originally created to cure cancer. He works to create a remedy while defending himself against the hostile mutants.

Warner Bros. began developing I Am Legend in 1994, and various actors and directors were attached to the project, though production was delayed due to budgetary concerns related to the script. Production began in 2006 in New York City, filming mainly on location in the city, including a $5 million scene at the Brooklyn Bridge. It is the third feature-film adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 I Am Legend novel, following 1964's The Last Man on Earth and 1971's The Omega Man.

I Am Legend was released on December 14, 2007, in the United States and Canada, and opened to the largest ever box office (not adjusted for inflation) for a non-Christmas film released in the U.S. in December. The film was the seventh-highest grossing film of 2007, earning $256 million domestically and $329 million internationally, for a total of $585 million.

I Am Legend (novel)

I Am Legend is a 1954 horror fiction novel by American writer Richard Matheson. It was influential in the development of the zombie genre of fiction, and in popularizing the concept of a worldwide apocalypse due to disease. The novel was a success and was adapted to film as The Last Man on Earth in 1964, as The Omega Man in 1971, and as I Am Legend in 2007, along with a direct-to-video 2007 production capitalizing on that film, I Am Omega. The novel was also the inspiration behind the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.

Plot summary

Robert Neville is the apparent sole survivor of a pandemic whose symptoms resemble vampirism. It is said that the pandemic was caused by a war, and that it was spread by dust storms in the cities and an explosion in the mosquito population. The narrative details Neville's daily life in Los Angeles as he attempts to comprehend, research, and possibly cure the disease, to which he is immune. Neville's past is revealed through flashbacks; the disease claimed his wife and daughter, and he was forced to kill his wife after she seemingly rose from the dead as a vampire and attacked him.