I half joked about how the people behind I AM LEGEND were ripping of THE ROAD WARRIOR when the trailer premiered (souped up car, dog companion in the passenger seat). But this really shows me they really were going for that vibe.

THE ROAD WARRIOR:



I AM LEGEND:

I guess the "we're not vampires" bit off the end of the Brooklyn Bridge?

I'm reading Max Brooks' deadly serious WORLD WAR Z, and you should, too. He's left behind the hidden humor of THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE in this fictional collection of accounts from the survivors of the Great Zombie Plague from all over the world. Chilling, with a lot to say about modern life and government.

World War Z is an excellent book, for those who can handle its intensity. I'll admit that the chills and doom hanging over the first half of the novel got me so worked up at times that I needed to take a break. Be sure to check out these threads on the novel and forthcoming film version:
WORLD WAR Z
WORLD WAR Z'er!


Wouldn't The Omega Man be a more commercial title for the Will Smith flick, considering that they don't seem to be too faithful to Matheson's book? It has more name recognition. And I doubt many Heston fans would've been as pissed off as the Matheson fans are.

Is that the finished poster? I only ask because, well, I'm no graphic designer but Will and his dog really don't like they belong with that backdrop. Yes, I am aware that blowing up a major bridge in New York for a photoshoot isn't generally done; but, even for a bit of Photoshop action (or whatever it is the professionals use), it just doesn't look right.

I'm sure this happens all the time and I'm probably only noticing it because of my prejudice and cynicism towards this flick. The same factors also make me look at the poster and think "Well, obviously he's not alone... he's got a dog."

And, come to think of it, the same things also make me wonder what he's even doing in that photo. I mean, the street's clearly a dead end - where has he just come from? Did he just stop by the river to take a whiz?

(I do apologise for my negative attitude, and promise to give the film a fair chance when it opens... sadly I've been left mentally bruised and beaten by the whole Planet of the Apes experience...)

Actually, the film is also a partial remake of A BOY AND HIS DOG, so the dog talks; Will was teaching him to say "The bridge is out."

As well as Alice Braga and Dash Mihok!

It looks like a composite of THE ROAD WARRIOR, THE OMEGA MAN, and A BOY AND HIS DOG and that John Wayne movie that Brian Camp will remeber for me. Its a shame they couldn't fit "I Am Legend" in it.

(Hmmm...let's see now...John Wayne movie, John Wayne movie...WINDS OF THE WASTELAND? LEGEND OF THE LOST? THE LONG VOYAGE HOME? THE QUIET MAN? DONOVAN'S REEF? THE LONGEST DAY? THE UNDEFEATED? Jeez, I'm stumped. :unsure:)

Oh, I got it! THE CONQUEROR, the one where he played Genghis Khan, that's it. :lol:

If you don't think awful photoshop rough drafts can't be finished products, then you don't remember the promotional material for Casino Royale.

Bill, thanks for the links to the WWZ threads.

I AM ANIMATED MARKETING TIE-IN

Having actually watched this now, calling it 'animated' was perhaps over-kind.

Yeah, more like a comic book with 3d effects. One cool thing is it was made with OVERBROOK Entertainment which is near where I used to live in Philadelphia :).

Still, I'm not too hostile to this movie and I look forward to seeing it. I have to say watching the Air Force destroy bridges to prevents civilians from leaving is a pretty scary image. I could see a scene like that appearing in a WWZ movie (which I loved as a book and as an audio adaptation). Granted this may just be living in Newark and my fiancee working in NYC right near 34th and MSG, its a pretty scary thought. I hate the idea of living in fear and such because of the crap it allows people to do, but I've always said to her if something happens, first leave your job get on the quickest train out no matter if its some 80 dollars Acela. I assume this is my own unique fear.

Why are so many people against the film? Honest question. I mean its not like The Last Man on Earth or Omega Man were terribly faithful to the original material IIRC from what people have said.

I'm not sure about that, either. I'd at least like to see a full trailer before even beginning to lean one way or another.

I'd guess Big Willie is a Big Stumbling Block ('aww, hell naw!!!'), but I like the guy, if not his movies all that often. It's the Akiva Goldsman rewrite of the script that's really got me worried - and that's the other thing people are tuning out over.

Still, we'll see.

Will Smith + Akiva Goldsman + Francis Lawrence = how could it possibly be good?

Goldsman and Lawrence have never been involved with a good genre movie. Smith's last good genre movie was released in 1997. Simple math.

Francis Lawrence has made exactly one feature. It was mediocre at best. However, I don't fault his direction, really - it's a confident job, so far as it goes.

I get the impression CONSTANTINE was fatally over-developed by Warners, and that Lawrence wasn't strong enough to prevent that from happening. I AM LEGEND shows every indication of going down the same road, but I'd still like to see a bit more of it before writing it off.

I guess. I mean, in theory, I agree with you, but one has to play the odds here, since there are only so many hours in the day and days in the week and when am I going to find time to watch the SPECIES IV DVD if I'm running around going to see Will Smith movies. We already know what Will Smith can do in this type of movie; we've seen it many times, and it ain't much. We already know what Goldsman can do, which is barely anything. Lawrence...maybe he deserves some slack for now (I was down on Fincher after ALIEN 3 too), but all we really have to go on is CONSTANTINE. We are all savvy filmgoers here, and we can make an educated guess that I AM LEGEND, based on the evidence presently before us, will not be a good movie. Is it possible that Goldsman will somehow reach within himself to create a screenplay of Serlingesque proportions, that Smith will not do his Eddie Murphy/Martin Lawrence ripoff, that Lawrence is not the second coming of Pitof? Absolutely. But not likely. My usual gameplan for this type of movie is to wait until my fellow Mobians have seen it first, and then wade in. Better your $12 than mine, son!

I really started thinking that the adaptation was headed south when they put out a casting call for a little boy... with an English accent.

Then I read the script, and boy was it all kinds of suck. Incidentally, the role of the little boy has no lines in the script.

Perhaps. I haven't actually committed to seeing it yet - but I'm still open to the possibility.

Do you have any way of knowing whether it was the shooting script or not? Not trying to delegitimize what you say, just hoping for room to hope is all.

I think that's the Manhattan Bridge that's out in the poster. The crew was filming between the bridges in March. The realization of the abandoned metropolis looks stunning in the trailer, so I'm in. (The filmmakers used the blueprints and drawings for the work-in-progress TKTS booth on Duffy Square to build their own model, so that particular detail wouldn't be dated when the film came out...but now it won't be finished till next year, giving it a jump on reality.)

New Trailer - it ain't the book, but I'm still not seeing any real indication of outright suck.

Besides "Screenplay by Akiva Goldsman"?

Yeah, besides that.

Sorry, just simply because it makes it unlikely that we'll see a release of the ACTUAL story, I'm not watching this. Plus the changes they made to make the story more uplifting (or something), are laughable.

No LAST MAN ON EARTH or THE OMEGA MAN for you either, then?

Damn, it looks like they got the dog! And, the "Will Smith Yell" is getting very tiresome!

I like The Last Man on Earth because for whatever changes it made, it still had a nice creepy post-apocalyptic mood and the ending did in some way approach the ending of the novel; The Omega Man I actually saw before I read the book so I guess that's maybe why it's not as much of an issue. There are many reasons I like this version - great 70s vibe (not to everyone's taste), nice atmosphere again, Heston's best (IMHO) period, some decent deserted city set-ups - there are probably plenty more reasons that I can't think of right now, but one of the real strengths is Ron Grainer's incredible score.

As for the Will Smith version... I'm the first to admit that perhaps I'm not being entirely unfair, but I don't think that modern Hollywood shows enough to convince me that they can do a faithful adaptation of this one, in tone as well as content. And Will Smith... I've not got a real problem with him all the time (I loved The Pursuit of Happyness and would have been happy enough if he'd picked up an Oscar) but in genre flicks I just come to expect a particular type of thing from him from the other (particularly genre) cinema I've seen. I would love it if the film makes me eat humble pie though.

That said, my problems are certainly not just with Smith. None of the names behind the cameras make me excited either (again, let me be wrong) and the trailer hasn't given me much cause to expect differently.

Positives though...

That new trailer does actually look a bit better than the first. Also, the whole blowing up of the bridges does look like a nice touch, the post-apocalyptic city footage is looking far more impressive and I'm beginning to let myself hope that they do something decent here. If I could pick out anything negative from the new trailer, a couple of things pop up, but it's not fair to pick on them when they're not in the proper context (i.e. the whole movie); that said, I do hope the vampires are going to be a bit more subtle than some 28 Days Later or 30 Days of Night type creatures - again, the trailer doesn't convince me there.

I could go on for ages dissecting the trailer (ah, internet forums) so perhaps I'll leave it there. Until the next trailer/poster appears at least.

Well, it looks like it got juiced up from the script, so that's a start.

But I was left wondering what an SR-71 was doing sitting on the flight deck of a carrier. Is there some sort of museum in New York like that?

Two previous disappointments probably actually make me more wary of a third film adaptation, not less. Especially since big studio, action/sci-fi Will Smith vehicles don't tend to scream "going back to the book."
Heck, after I, Robot, I'm impressed you guys are even optimistic enough to watch the trailers. ;)

Yeah, there is(was) a museum like that, the Intrepid Air and Space Museum (now closed, I believe), which was basically the WWII-era aircraft carrier, the Intrepid, docked at a pier off 43rd Street and set up as a museum, practically across the street, ironically, from the Consulate of the People's Republic of China. I'm not sure if that's exactly what's in the film, but it sounds like the model for it. (My mother worked on the Intrepid during WWII right after she got out of high school. When it was docked in San Francisco, she served on it as a draftsman.)

Courtesy of http://www.ipecac.com:

"There is a little film coming out in
December called "I Am Legend" that features our very own Mike Patton.
It also stars some actor named Will Smith. The tricky part is, you won't
see Mike, but you'll hear him. He is the voice of the creatures in the
movie. That is right, the evil screams and howls coming from the
"creatures" will be courtesy of Mike. Seems he is getting a lot of requests
to do evil/monster/zombie noises and sounds. Remember he is the
Darkness in the game of the same name and even shows up in the game Portal as
well!!!"

=======

For those who don't know, Mike Patton is the former singer for Faith No More and Mr. Bungle and current singer/songwriter for Fantomas. He's also an avowed movie buff so I'm sort of hoping that he's gradually moving into his preferred medium. After all, the third Fantomas album, "Delirium Cordia" almost sounds like a prepackaged film score.

Perhaps Patton may someday succeed where Rob Zombie has only managed to fail upwards.

Or maybe not. I thought that he did rather well with his major acting debut in Steve Balderson's FIRECRACKER, but one of the San Francisco weekly papers (either the SF Bay Guardian or the SFWeekly) criticized that Patton showed more enthusiasm than talent...

...which, if so, would put him squarely in the same ballpark as Zombie.

Furthermore, Patton delights in creating art which is deliberately maddening. One can only imagine what would happen were he to have significant creative input into the making of a film.

On the other hand, his work with John Kaada and Eyvind Kang has been very nice and easy on the ears so maybe he's mellowing with age.

That's pretty neat - thanks Tom.

I see outright suck...Will Smith. I cannot stand him.

k. noted.