I Am Legend is a 2007 American post-apocalyptic action thriller film[4][5] directed by Francis Lawrence from a screenplay by Akiva Goldsman and Mark Protosevich and starring Will Smith as US Army virologist Robert Neville.

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.

Those that weren't killed were turned into vampiric, albino, cannibalistic mutants called Darkseekers, who are extremely vulnerable to sunlight and roam at night, preying on the 1% of humans who have become naturally immune survivors.

Three years after the outbreak, in 2012,[8] U.S. Army virologist LTC Robert Neville lives an isolated life in deserted Manhattan in a heavily fortified Washington Square Park home.

Neville's daily routine includes experimenting on infected rats to find a cure for the virus, searching for food and supplies, and waiting each day for any survivors who might respond to his continuous recorded radio broadcasts, which instruct them to meet him at midday at the South Street Seaport.

Neville's only companion is his German Shepherd Samantha (Sam), and to cope with his loneliness, he regularly "talks" to mannequins and the characters on film recordings from video stores.

Heartbroken and driven by rage, Neville ventures out and deliberately attacks a group of Darkseekers the following night, before he is rescued by a pair of immune humans, Anna and a young boy named Ethan, who have traveled from Maryland after hearing his broadcast.

They transport the injured Neville back to his home, where Anna explains they survived the outbreak aboard a Red Cross evacuation ship from São Paulo, and are making their way to a survivors' camp in Bethel, Vermont.

Neville draws a vial of blood from the woman he cured, and gives it to Anna, before shutting Ethan and her inside a coal chute in the back of the lab.

Neville realizes it is referencing the butterfly-shaped tattoo on the female Darkseeker's neck and the alpha male and his followers have simply been trying to recover his mate.

The next morning, Neville abandons his research and heads along with Anna and Ethan to Vermont as a changed man, in the hope of finding the survivors' colony.

[9][10][11][12][13][14] In February 2023, it was confirmed that the sequel to I Am Legend would consider the "alternate" ending to be the canonical one, with Will Smith reprising his role as Dr. Robert Neville, as he resumes his experiments on the Darkseekers.

[16][page needed] In 1995, Warner Bros. began developing the film project, having owned the rights to Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend since 1970[17] and having already made the 1971 adaptation The Omega Man.

Protosevich's first draft took place in 2000 in San Francisco, and contained many similarities with the finished film, though the Darkseekers (called 'Hemocytes') were civilized to the point of the creatures in The Omega Man and Anna was a lone morphine addict, as well as the fact that a Hemocyte character named Christopher joined forces with Neville.

In July, Scott and Schwarzenegger finalized negotiations,[19][20] with production slated to begin the coming September,[18] using Houston as a stand-in for the film's setting of Los Angeles.

[23][24][16][page needed] Schwarzenegger's recent films (Eraser and Warner Bros. own Batman & Robin) also underperformed, and the studio's latest experiences with big budget sci-fi movies Sphere and The Postman were negative as well.

[16][page needed][26] In March 2002, Schwarzenegger became the producer of I Am Legend, commencing negotiations with Michael Bay to direct and Will Smith to star in the film.

[30] The director had watched Jane Campion's film The Piano with a low volume so as to not disturb his newborn son and realized that silence could be very effective cinema.

Several filler characters with uncredited roles were in old news broadcasts and flashbacks, such as the unnamed President's voice (Pat Fraley), and the cast of The Today Show.

Akiva Goldsman decided to move the story from Los Angeles to New York City to take advantage of locations that would more easily show emptiness.

[33] Michael Tadross convinced authorities to close busy areas such as the Grand Central Terminal viaduct, several blocks of Fifth Avenue, and Washington Square Park.

[46][47] The concept behind the infected was that their adrenal glands were open all of the time, and Lawrence explained: "They needed to have an abandon in their performance that you just can't get out of people in the middle of the night when they're barefoot.

At the London premiere in Leicester Square, British comedian and actor Neg Dupree was arrested after pushing his way onto the red carpet and running around shouting "I am Negend!".

[58] In October 2007, Warner Bros. Pictures, in conjunction with the Electric Sheep Company, launched the online multiplayer game I Am Legend: Survival in the virtual world Second Life.

The game was the largest launched in the virtual world in support of a film release, permitting people to play against each other as the infected or the uninfected across a replicated 60 acres (240,000 m2) of New York City.

[60] The film was released on DVD on March 18, 2008, in two editions: a one-disc release, including the movie with four animated comics ("Death As a Gift", "Isolation", "Sacrificing the Few for the Many", and "Shelter"), and other DVD-ROM features, and a two-disc special edition that includes all these extras, an alternative theatrical version of the movie with an ending that follows closer to that from the novel,[9] and a digital copy of the film.

The site's critical consensus reads, "I Am Legend overcomes questionable special effects and succeeds largely on the strength of Will Smith's mesmerizing performance.

"[74] In his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, writing, "Given its setup, I Am Legend is well-constructed to involve us with Dr. Neville and his campaign to survive.

Neville's method of producing power using gasoline-powered generators seemed the most credible: "This part of the tale is possible, if not entirely likely," Popular Mechanics editor Roy Berendsohn says.

Studio executives found so many similarities to I Am Legend in the screenplay, they had the author Gary Graham rewrite it so it could serve as a reboot of the story, hoping to create a franchise with the new film.