Filmstalker: Depp's Legend role altered

So a little while ago I wrote about Johnny Depp joining Will Smith in I Am Legend, well apparently it was true, to a degree.

Seems that the premise of I Am Legend is getting quite a tweak from the original story. The original tale had the last man alive on Earth fighting against the plague ridden population as they turn into vampiric mutants. The mutants group together creating a new race of people who believe this last man is a devil and do everything they can to destroy him.

Sounds good doesn't it? Well the tweaks seem to be a bit bigger than expected. Gone are the mutants who are banded together, they are replaced with dumb straight monster vampires. Get rid of the leader (who it was thought would be played by Depp), add in a new found survivor friend for the last man on Earth, and then we have Depp and Smith teaming up together.

The scary story comes from Jo Blo, and casts a serious doubt on the film for me. Is this really going to be any good now? A buddy movie with Depp and Smith teaming up to kill masses of unintelligent smash-kill monsters...It had so much potential.

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Well it's not really I Am Legend anymore then; the entire book is built around the loneliness of the lead character. Fine I know books have to be adapted to work on the screen, but in my opinion this makes it relate to the story in title only.

BTW there was not really a lead vampire in I Am Legend; I think that’s something people have got from the Omega Man film. The main vampire character was Ben Cortman who was a neighbour of Robert Neville’s who has become a sort of nemesis for him, but he's not a vampire overlord or anything as people seem to think.

I had assumed Depp would play Cortman and that was fantastic, this script change is disappointing, I had thought that by the third adaptation of this book they would have decided to get closer to what makes it such a classic. Much as I love Last Man on Earth and The Omega Man, I really wanted to see a straight adaptation this time.

Posted by: bullet in the head | July 4, 2006 8:40 PM