What Was the Name of the Original Film?

Texture

Texture

Well-known member
There is a new Will Smith movie due out titled, "I Am Legend."

There was a TV movie that was very well done with this very same plot from the seventies. Seems they've pulled it out of the moth balls because of the success of 28 Days Later.

I never saw the original film, but as a teenager, had a close friend who used to talk about it all the time. I always wanted to see it, but now I guess I'll see this new version.

Still, I'm struggling to remember the title of the original. Anybody know?

In the original plot the hero holed up in a mansion surrounded by flood lights at night to ward off the light sensitive infected zombies. Drove around in a sports car by day, culling for food and supplies.

Here is the plot line of the new film followed by a trailer link...

"Robert Neville (Will Smith) is a brilliant scientist, but even he could not contain the terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable…and manmade. Somehow immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City…and maybe the world. But he is not alone. He is surrounded by “the Infected”—victims of the plague who have mutated into carnivorous beings who can only exist in the dark and who will devour or infect anyone or anything in their path. For three years, Neville has spent his days scavenging for food and supplies and faithfully sending out radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. All the while, the Infected lurk in the shadows, watching Neville’s every move, waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind’s last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood. But his blood is also what The Infected hunt, and Neville knows he is outnumbered and quickly running out of time."

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/iamlegend/
 
its been adapted to film twice the first was The Last Man on Earth in 1962 and the second was The Omega Man in 1971. It was originally a novel written by Richard Matheson in 1954.

The book takes place in the then-future of 1976–1979, and opens with the monotony and horror of the daily life of the protagonist, Robert Neville. Neville is apparently the only survivor of an apocalypse caused by a pandemic of a bacterium the symptoms of which are very similar to vampirism. He lives in a house fortified against nocturnal attacks by the roaming infected, and sallies forth by daylight to kill the sleeping vampires. Every day he also makes repairs to his house, boarding up windows, stringing and hanging garlic, and disposing of vampires' corpses on his lawn.
Neville's psychological disposition is a significant element in the novel, and his struggles with despair imbue the character with intensity and gravitas. The author emphasizes that he is an ordinary, flawed man trying to deal with an extraordinary catastrophe.
Much of the story is devoted to Neville's struggles to understand the plague that has transformed everyone he meets except for himself, and the novel details the progress of his discoveries. In this regard, the novel is almost unique in vampire fiction in that instead of asking the reader to accept a supernatural explanation for vampire phenomena, the author strives to offer scientific basis for such symptoms as aversion to garlic, craving of fresh blood, and resistance to bullets but vulnerability to stakes and sunlight. The aversion to mirrors and crosses (or, in the case of one vampire of Jewish origin, the Torah) is classified as psychological.
Eventually, Neville discovers that while he is the only person immune to the bacterium, he is not the only one still alive. Others who have been infected have discovered a means to hold the disease at bay. However, during the daylight hours, they appear to be fully involved vampires. Thus, along with the vampires, he has been killing these still alive persons. He becomes a source of terror to the still living, since he can go abroad in daylight (which they can't) and leaves their dead behind. These still living “vampires” capture Neville and reveal their nature to him, and how monstrous he appears to them. Just as vampires were regarded as legendary monsters that preyed on the vulnerable humans in their beds, Neville has become the last of a dead breed; a mythical figure that kills both vampires and the infected living while they are sleeping. He becomes a legend as the vampires once were, hence the title.
 
It's funny. I was sitting in traffic just the other day thinking: "Man, how I wish an unstoppable plague would come along..."

I remember when they were shooting this and had barges of lights, lights on the piers on both sides of the E. River, like 2 dozen of what had to be 10K lights, blasting the Bklyn Bridge to light it up, so that it could be in the background of some shots. It was right after we shot KATRINA and man we wished we would have known, so we could steal some shots with the lit-up BB in the background :)
 
Texture said:
In the original plot the hero holed up in a mansion surrounded by flood lights at night to ward off the light sensitive infected zombies. Drove around in a sports car by day, culling for food and supplies.
Click to expand...

Sounds like 'Omega Man' with Charlton Heston.
 
Mark Harris said:
I remember when they were shooting this and had barges of lights, lights on the piers on both sides of the E. River, like 2 dozen of what had to be 10K lights, blasting the Bklyn Bridge to light it up, so that it could be in the background of some shots. It was right after we shot KATRINA and man we wished we would have known, so we could steal some shots with the lit-up BB in the background :)
Click to expand...

They pretty much just shutdown Washington Sq Park right around NYU for like fourth months. I got a bunch of pictures of burning cabs a few months ago. I hear they spent over 250 million on this film.
 
RUSKA said:
its been adapted to film twice the first was The Last Man on Earth in 1962 and the second was The Omega Man in 1971. It was originally a novel written by Richard Matheson in 1954.

The book takes place in the then-future of 1976–1979, and opens with the monotony and horror of the daily life of the protagonist, Robert Neville. Neville is apparently the only survivor of an apocalypse caused by a pandemic of a bacterium the symptoms of which are very similar to vampirism. He lives in a house fortified against nocturnal attacks by the roaming infected, and sallies forth by daylight to kill the sleeping vampires. Every day he also makes repairs to his house, boarding up windows, stringing and hanging garlic, and disposing of vampires' corpses on his lawn.
Neville's psychological disposition is a significant element in the novel, and his struggles with despair imbue the character with intensity and gravitas. The author emphasizes that he is an ordinary, flawed man trying to deal with an extraordinary catastrophe.
Click to expand...

Cool, cool, cool! Thanks so much, though you might want to label the end of the description "SPOILER ALERT" as I never knew the original ending.

Thanks for your very detailed reply! I never got to see Omega Man, but I'll be sure to see this!

Cheers,

Erik
 
Mark Harris said:
It's funny. I was sitting in traffic just the other day thinking: "Man, how I wish an unstoppable plague would come along..."

I remember when they were shooting this and had barges of lights, lights on the piers on both sides of the E. River, like 2 dozen of what had to be 10K lights, blasting the Bklyn Bridge to light it up, so that it could be in the background of some shots. It was right after we shot KATRINA and man we wished we would have known, so we could steal some shots with the lit-up BB in the background :)
Click to expand...

LOL!

Hey, come to think of it, I remember this too! For this movie, huh?


E.
 
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