I knew someone who was working on the set of the movie, re-routing people around the streets they were filming on and every time someone would ask him about the movie he’d say, “Alright, Will Smith…last person alive”.

If only that was the plot of the movie. Just poor Will Smith, all alone, with no cameras to mug to. Dancing around with the corpse of DJ Jazzy Jeff, desperately ignoring the flesh falling off the carcas.

And then he goes up to the roof of a skyscraper and does the “Big Willy” dance while the sun goes down, just crying and crying.

“Sniff sniff, ‘It’s Big Willy time.’ WAAAUUUHHHH!!!”

On the other hand, neither is Charlton Heston, really, but Heston being Heston works in The Omega Man for me because it really plays into the whole 60′s youthquake idea underlying it.

Mainstream audiences were itching for something to see that wasn’t political or controversial. There’s no way Smith’s film would have been a blockbuster hit in a regular summer season.

I think you underestimate the size of the “see-whatever-opened-this-weekend” crowd. I mean, Alvin & the Chipmunks made $40 million, for pete’s sake!

Both have stars who are first and foremost celebrities and bring themselves to the story, rather than inhabiting a character they’ve created for that story. That being said, I felt Smith did a good version of “Will Smith post-apocalyptic & brooding”, whereas Heston felt like he never quite was comfortable in Omega Man. Perhaps he was worried he might be getting stuck in a sci-fi ghetto he didn’t want to be in, after Planet of The Apes? Omega Man likely got greenlit because of Apes.

Omega Man was a too 60s-relevant version of Matheson’s book; Legend ’07 feels like a first-person shooter horror game adaptation. I think the reason the Smith movie did so well has everything to do with the movie season, which was pretty poor. Mainstream audiences were itching for something to see that wasn’t political or controversial. There’s no way Smith’s film would have been a blockbuster hit in a regular summer season.

Speaking of books, how did the move go, Greg?

I’ve read ‘I Am Legend’, and it’s an interesting book…not as good as I was expecting, but that’s more down to expectation management than quality or lack thereof. It’s hard to come to a book that everyone describes as “brilliant, seminal, classic”, and not feel a little disappointed. That aside, I certainly felt it was unfilmable as was. Too much of the book is internal narrative, very little of it is action. It’s no coincidence that they’ve been working on the Will Smith adaptation for something like a decade. (It was in the book, ‘The Greatest Science Fiction Movies Never Made’.)

I’ve watched ‘Night of the Living Dead’ several times, and I’m a little surprised you didn’t mention it here, because Romero’s been very open about the fact that he lifted ‘Night’ from ‘Legend’, substituting zombies for vampires in order to avoid plagarism charges. (Matheson’s response was apparently to say, “I’d have sued if you made any money on it, but you didn’t, so who cares?”) ‘Night’ obviously takes place over far less time and adds cast members (the latter being a theme of adaptations of ‘Legend’), but does convey the apocalyptic nature of the plague far better.

‘The Omega Man’ is actually a terrible movie, but it’s interesting that it’s so close to being a really good movie. Heston is woefully miscast; he’s a big, brawny he-man action type, not given to introspection, and it’s a very introspective role. The disease doesn’t make a ton of sense; it’s implied at several points in the film that getting the disease makes you join the Family, which isn’t supported by descriptions of what the disease is. The symbolism is heavy-handed and obvious, the Family wouldn’t realistically last two seconds against someone armed with as many guns as Heston has, and the ending is basically the writer second-guessing his own instincts in an attempt to be “relevant”. (Matthias should have died at the hands of the dying Heston.) But just a few script polishes here and there, and a few better actors, and this could be a great movie. It’s a bit like motorcycle jumping. You don’t “almost” clear the canyon.

Not seen ‘Last Man on Earth’ (it’s in my stack of “movies to watch” in the rec room), or the new version (lost interest when I found out the vampires were all mindless). It’s interesting to watch all the solutions that people attempt in adapting such a problematic text, though.

To be honest, the interesting thing to me about the story has always been ‘what would the last survivor of a zombie holocaust do with his time?’, which this version really makes the most of. It’s certainly not just a big dumb action movie- it’s quite an affecting character study, aided by a great performance from Will Smith.

I LOVE this book. I knew within the first twenty minutes that the end of the movie was going to be completely different from the book, because of the mindlessness of the vampires. makes the third act of the book basically impossible, straight off the bat.

But I really enjoyed the movie anyway, mainly because I like Will Smith as an actor. I thought he turned in a fantastic performance, and nailed the tone for me. He was 100% the Robert Neville I read about in the book (at least for me).

On the other hand, I can’t stand that hammy old cowboy Heston, so I hated the Omega Man.

Different strokes, etc. etc…

You could write the word SPOILERS a million times around it so that others don’t get frustrated.

That’s why he does so many bio-pics. You don’t have to convince the audience that you’re the character, because they already know you’re impersonating someone else. No need to suspend the disbelief, since no one’s trying to convince you.