I’m always down for a good undead-creeps story. And I’m aware that it’s essentially a remake of the Last Man on Earth/Omega Man. Sounds cool and all, and I really liked the trailer–up until the part with the actual vampires. Will Smith seems to lose all of his believability in that instant, and the vampires look awful. I don’t mean “awful” as in “really cool and disgusting”, like the 30 Days of Night vampires. I mean they just look shitty.
What do the rest of you garlic-toting Dopers think?
Technically, IIRC, Omega Man was a film adaption of the book I am Legend.
The book also spawned Homega Man. 
The trailer was too blurry and shakycam for me to form opinions about the vampires, although I looked at a LQ version.
The trailer was kinda cool in that it starts out idyllic “I can do whatever I want” and then moves to vampires. I just hope they don’t go all happy ending, and that Will Smith is actually playing Neville, and not Will Smith like he does it so many other movies.
mild spoiler for book:
I wonder if they’ll keep the book’s mildly downbeat ending. If they don’t the title won’t make any sense.
I’m re-reading the book right now.
The whole story is pretty down beat. He contemplates suicide a lot, he remembers his wife and child being killed by the ‘plague’, then there’s the part with the dog. It’s pretty damn depressing.
I haven’t seen anything but the teaser but any trailer for “I am Legend” that doesn’t start or end with “COME OUT NEVILLE!” is going to disappointment me.
I just read an interview with the director in, I think, *Sci Fi *magazine. In it he says (spoiled since it’s not info in the trailer):
1. It’s not vampirism in the movie, it’s some sort of medical plague that’s apparently treatable. Neville is a medical practitioner of some kind, immune to the plague, who spends his time looking for a cure (and apparently, working out and driving fast cars).
2. Neville is supposedly alone for a good portion of the movie. It’s not a “being chased by zombies” movie. This is what the director claims, FWIW, and his viewpoint on that might be skewed.
And I agree, if they change the ending, the title won’t make sense. I’m tempted to compare it to I, Robot, except that one, while totally different than Asimov’s book, at least kept something that made the title make sense. Although, I suppose they could make a totally different ending that let the title make sense. Wait and see, I guess.
As mentioned before, I, Robot apparently started out as a totally unrelated story. Only later, when the execs realized they had a major lawsuit on their hands if they put the movie out, did they buy the rights and slap the name on it.
What lawsuit would they have if they didn’t name it I, Robot? They could have left out the Three Laws and the movie would have had almost no resemblance to Asimov’s works, except for being rather derivative, but there’s nothing illegal about that.
My guess is that in typical Will Smith fashion, he will find a cure and save the world and that’s how he will be legend.
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was thinking, too.
Well, the similarity was pretty darn blatant. In fact, it was ridiculously derivative. The suits may not have realized it when the bought the screenplay, however, and I suspect the Three Laws of Robotics were in the original. I haven’t been able to confirm the rumor, but that’s the buzz.