I Am Legend is a 2007 American post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film directed by Francis Lawrence and starring Will Smith. It is the third feature film adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel of the same name, following 1964's The Last Man on Earth and 1971's The Omega Man.[2] Smith plays virologist Robert Neville, who is immune to a man-made virus originally created to cure cancer. He works to create a remedy while defending himself against mutants by the virus.
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[3] at the Brooklyn Bridge.
I Am Legend was released on December 14, 2007 in the United States and Canada, and opened to the largest ever box office (not counting 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.
Plot
In September 2012, military virologist Lieutenant Colonel Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the last healthy and immune human in New York City, and maybe the last human on Earth. A genetically-engineered variant of the measles virus created by Dr. Alice Krippin (Emma Thompson), meant as a cure for cancer (which was a success), had mutated into a lethal strain. It spread throughout the world, killing 90% of humanity. The remaining 588 million survivors became predatory and vampiric[4] beings[5] called "Darkseekers", that emerge after dusk to prey on those immune to the virus. In December 2009, Neville had lost his wife Zoe (Salli Richardson) and daughter Marley (Willow Smith) - named after Bob Marley - in a helicopter accident during a chaotic quarantine of Manhattan.
Neville's daily routine includes experimenting on infected rats to find a cure for the virus and trips through a decaying Manhattan to collect food and medical supplies or hunt for deer. He keeps vigil each day for a response to his recorded AM radio broadcasts, which instruct any survivors to meet him at midday at the South Street Seaport, where he carefully sits on a bench and waits every day. Neville's isolation is broken only by the companionship of his pet German Shepherd Samantha and interaction with mannequins he has set up as patrons of a video store.
He lives in a Washington Square Park townhouse[6], which he has shielded with UV projectors and iron walls over the windows. He has also set up several generators in the house to provide electrical energy.
One day, he is hunting deer with Sam, who chases a deer to an abandoned dark building. He finds the deer dead and realizes the building is full of infected Darkseekers. To test a treatment, Neville sets a snare trap and captures an infected woman. In his laboratory in the basement, Neville tries the new serum on the infected woman, seemingly without success.
The next day, after finding one of his mannequins moved out in the street in front of Grand Central Terminal, Neville is caught in a snare trap and passes out. He regains consciousness at dusk and frees himself, but a pack of infected dogs attacks Neville and Sam. During the fight, one of the infected dogs bites Sam. Neville brings Sam home and attempts to save the dog by injecting a strain of his serum, but it is too late. Sam starts to mutate, forcing Neville to strangle her to death.
Overwhelmed by grief and rage at the loss of his only companion since Manhattan's quarantine, Neville attacks a group of Darkseekers in the Seaport the following night with his Ford Expedition equipped with UV lights. He kills many, but they overwhelm and nearly kill him before he is rescued by a pair of immune humans, a woman named Anna (Alice Braga) and a boy named Ethan (Charlie Tahan), who followed his radio broadcasts from Maryland. Anna and Ethan take Neville back to his home. Anna explains that they are making their way to a survivors' camp in Bethel, Vermont. Neville does not believe such a camp exists and expresses doubt when Anna says God told her about it.
The following night, an alpha male leads an infected mob in an attack on Neville's house. Anna, who was unaware of Neville's precautions in covering his scent outside the house, had inadvertently allowed the Darkseekers to follow their trail. As the Darkseekers charge the house, Neville stops the first wave with UV light projectors, which others destroy. Neville also destroys the second wave with M18 Claymore mines planted in the yard, but he finds himself defenseless against the third wave. As Neville tries to find Anna and Ethan, a Darkseeker enters the house and attacks him. The Darkseeker then retreats upstairs and begins tearing a hole in the roof so others can get in.
After Neville saves Anna and Ethan, they retreat into the laboratory. They seal themselves in a reinforced plexiglass room with the infected woman and discover that Neville's treatment is working; the subject looks much more human. The Darkseekers break in and the alpha male begins to throw himself against the plexiglass, cracking it. Neville then sees her butterfly tattoo and thinks of Marley, who used to make a butterfly shape with her hands. Neville then draws a vial of the infected woman's blood and gives it to Anna, before shutting her and Ethan inside a coal chute in the back of the lab. He then detonates an M67 grenade to destroy the attackers at the cost of his own life.
Anna and Ethan arrive at the survivors' colony, where Anna hands over the antidote. Anna later states that the survivors are Neville's legacy, as his fight for a cure became legend.
