Development during production in 2006. In the background is the house where Will Smith's character lives. The science-fiction
horror genre re-emerged in the late 1990s. In 1995,
Warner Bros. Pictures began developing the film project, having owned the rights to
Richard Matheson's 1954 novel
I Am Legend since 1970 and having already made the 1971 adaptation
The Omega Man.
Mark Protosevich was hired to write the script after the studio was impressed with his
speculative script of
The Cell. 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. Warner Bros. immediately put the film on the fast track, attaching
Neal H. Moritz as
producer. using a script by Protosevich and with
Ridley Scott as director; however, by June 1997, the studio's preference was for actor
Arnold Schwarzenegger. In July, Scott and Schwarzenegger finalized negotiations, with production slated to begin the coming September, Scott had Protosevich replaced by a screenwriter of his own choosing,
John Logan, with whom he spent months of intensive work on a number of different drafts. The Scott–Logan version of
I Am Legend was a mix of sci-fi and psychological thriller, without dialogue in the first hour and with a sombre ending. Scott rewrote the script to reduce the film's budget by $20 million but in March 1998, the studio canceled the project due to budgetary concerns and quite possibly to the box office failures of Scott's last three films,
1492: Conquest of Paradise,
White Squall, and
G.I. Jane. with Protosevich hired to write a third new draft, far more action-oriented than his previous versions but the director (who reportedly wished for
Nicolas Cage to play the lead) moved on to direct
Reign of Fire and the project did not get off the ground. 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. The project was shelved due to Warner Bros. president
Alan F. Horn's dislike of the script. In 2004,
Akiva Goldsman was asked by head of production Jeff Robinov to produce the film. In September 2005, director
Francis Lawrence signed on to helm the project, with production slated to begin in 2006.
Guillermo del Toro was originally approached to direct by Smith, but turned it down to direct
Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Lawrence, whose film
Constantine was produced by Goldsman, was fascinated by empty urban environments. He said, "Something's always really excited me about that... to have experienced that much loss, to be without people or any kind of social interaction for that long." A rewrite was done to distance the project from the other
zombie films inspired by the novel, He said he took on
I Am Legend because he felt it could be like "
Gladiator [or]
Forrest Gump—these are movies with wonderful, audience-pleasing elements, but also uncompromised artistic value. [This] always felt like it had those possibilities to me." To prepare for his role, Smith visited the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in
Georgia. He also met with a person who had been in solitary confinement and a former
prisoner of war. The rest of the supporting cast consists of
Salli Richardson as Zoe, Robert's wife, and
Alice Braga as a survivor named Anna.
Emma Thompson has an uncredited role as Dr. Alice Krippin, who appears on television explaining her cure for cancer that mutates into the virus. Singer
Mike Patton provided the guttural screams of the infected "hemocytes", and
Dash Mihok provided the character animation for the infected "alpha male". 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.
Filming , where a $5-million scene was filmed 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. Michael Tadross convinced authorities to close busy areas such as the
Grand Central Terminal viaduct, several blocks of
Fifth Avenue, and
Washington Square Park. Filming began on September 23, 2006. The Marcy Avenue Armory in Williamsburg was used for the interior of Neville's home, Other locations include the Tribeca section of lower Manhattan, the aircraft carrier
Intrepid, the
Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx, and St. Patrick's Cathedral. Also present were several
Humvees, three
Strykers, a
cutter, a
utility boat, and two response boat small craft, as well as other vehicles including taxis, police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances. Filming concluded on March 31, 2007. Reshoots were conducted around November 2007. Lawrence noted, "We weren't seeing fully rendered shots until about a month ago. The movie starts to take on a whole other life. It's not until later that you can judge a movie as a whole and go, 'Huh, maybe we should shoot this little piece in the middle, or tweak this a little bit.' It just so happened that our reshoots revolved around the end of the movie."
Effects A week into filming, Lawrence felt the infected (referred to as "Darkseekers" or "hemocytes" in the script), who were being portrayed by actors wearing prosthetics, were not convincing. His decision to use CGI resulted in an increased budget and extended
post-production, although the end results were not always well received. "The film's producers and sound people wanted the creatures in the movie to sound somewhat human, but not the standard", so Mike Patton, lead singer of
Faith No More, was engaged to provide the screams and howls of the infected. In addition, CGI was used for the lions and
deer in the film, and to erase pedestrians in shots of New York. Workers visible in windows, spectators, and moving cars in the distance were all removed. In his vision of an empty New York, Lawrence cited
John Ford as his influence: ==Music==