# I Am Legend (film)

I Am Legend (2007) is an American post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film directed by Francis Lawrence and starring Will Smith. It is the third film adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend (1954), following The Last Man on Earth (1964) and The Omega Man (1971).

## Anna

* In 2009 a deadly virus burned through our civilization, pushing humankind to the edge of extinction. Dr. Robert Neville dedicated his life to the discovery of a cure, and the restoration of humanity. On September 9th, 2012, at approximately 8:49 p.m. he discovered that cure; and at 8:52 he gave his life to defend it. We are his legacy. This is his legend. Light up the darkness.

## Marley

* Mommy look, it's a butterfly!

## Robert Neville

* My name is Robert Neville. I am a survivor living in New York City. I am broadcasting on all AM frequencies. I will be at the South Street Seaport everyday at mid-day, when the sun is highest in the sky. If you are out there... if anyone is out there... I can provide food, I can provide shelter, I can provide security. If there's anybody out there... anybody... please. You are not alone.
* Dr. Robert Neville, September 5th, 2012, GA series, serum 391. Animal trials. Streaming video. [goes over to a stack of glass cubicles containing KV infected rats] GA series results appear typical. Compounds 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 18 did not kill the virus. Compounds 2, 5, 7, 12, 13, 15, 17 all killed the host. [pause] Hold on a second. Compound 6 appears to be showing decreased aggression response. Partial pigmentation return. Slight pupil constriction. GA series, serum 391, Compound 6, next candidate for human trials. You hang in there, #6.
* Day 1001. Uh, we came in close contact with a hive today. Blood tests confirm that I am immune to both the airborne and contact strains. Canines remain immune to airborne strain only. [to Sam] You can't go running into the dark, dummy. Vaccine trials continue, I'm still unable to transfer my immunity to infected hosts. The Krippen Virus is... elegant. Just fishing in the dark, son. Hm, a behavioral note, um, an infected male exposed himself to sunlight today. Now, it's possible decreased brain function or the growing scarcity of food is causing them to... ignore their basic survival instincts. Social de-evolution appears complete. Typical human behavior is now entirely absent.
* This is Ground Zero. This is my site. I can still fix this.
* [sees the department store dummy, Fred, outside of the store] What the hell are you doing out here, Fred? What the hell-No! NO! [grabs his assault rifle] What the hell... Fred, if you're real, you better tell me right now! Dammit Fred... IF YOU'RE REAL, YOU BETTER TELL ME RIGHT NOW! [guns the dummy down] DAMN IT, FRED!! DAMN IT!
* I like Shrek.
* [now completely alone, Neville talks to the department store mannequins] I promised my friend I would say hello to you today. Hello. Hello. Please say hello to me. [crying] Please say hello to me!
* [telling Anna about Bob Marley] He had this idea. It was kind of a virologist idea. He believed that you could cure racism and hate... literally cure it, by injecting music and love into people's lives. When he was scheduled to perform at a peace rally, a gunman came to his house and shot him down. Two days later he walked out on that stage and sang. When they asked him why — He said, "The people who are trying to make this world worse are not taking a day off. How can I? Light up the darkness."

## Dialogue

    TV Personality: The world of medicine has seen its share of miracle cures, from the polio vaccine to heart transplants. But all past achievements may pale in comparison to the work of Dr. Alice Krippin. Thank you so much for joining us this morning.
    Dr. Alice Krippin: Not at all.
    TV Personality: So, Dr. Krippin, give it to me in a nutshell.
    Dr. Alice Krippin: Well, the premise is quite simple — um, take something designed by nature and reprogram it to make it work for the body rather than against it.
    TV Personality: You're talking about a virus?
    Dr. Alice Krippin: Indeed, yes. In this case the measles, um, virus which has been engineered at a genetic level to be helpful rather than harmful. Um, I find the best way to describe it is if you can... if you can imagine your body as a highway, and you picture the virus as a very fast car, being driven by a very bad man. Imagine the damage that car can cause. Then if you replace that man with a cop... the picture changes. And that's essentially what we've done.
    TV Personality: And how many people have you treated so far?
    Dr. Alice Krippin: Well, we've had 10,009 clinical trials in humans so far.
    TV Personality: And how many are cancer-free?
    Dr. Alice Krippin: 10,009.
    TV Personality: So you have actually cured cancer.
    Dr. Alice Krippin: Yes, yes... yes, we have.
    Neville: [While watching a video of Shrek, softly recites all of the dialogue of an entire scene aloud as the lines are spoken on TV. Anna and Ethan stare at him] I like Shrek.
    Anna: You're not so good with people anymore, are you?
    [Anna looks at the pictures of the dark seekers Neville has experimented on]
    Anna: Did they all die?
    Neville: Yes.
    Anna: My God.
    Neville: God didn't do this. We did.
    Anna: Come with us, Neville. To the colony.
    Neville: There's no colony, Anna. [closes metal barrier] Everything just fell apart. There was no evacuation plan...
    Anna: You're wrong. There is a colony. I know, okay?
    Anna: How do you know, Anna? [closes another barrier]
    Neville: I just know.
    Anna: How? I said, how do you know? How could you know?
    Anna: God told me. He has a plan.
    Neville: God told you?
    Anna: Yes.
    Neville: The God?
    Anna: Yes. I know how this sounds.
    Neville: It sounds crazy.
    Anna: But something told me to turn on the radio. Something told me to come here.
    Neville: My voice on the radio told you to come here, Anna.
    Anna: You were trying to kill yourself last night, weren't you? And I got here just in time. He must have sent me here for a reason.
    Neville: Anna... Stop it. What are you doing? Stop it.
    Anna: The world is quieter now. We just have to listen. If we listen, we can hear God's plan.
    Neville: God's plan?
    Anna: Yeah.
    Neville: All right. Let me tell you about your "God's plan". There were 6 billion people on Earth when the infection hit. KV had a 90% kill rate, that's 5.4 billion people dead. Crashed and bled out. Dead. [claps hands together] Less than 1% immunity. That left 12 million healthy people, like you, me, and Ethan. The other 588 million turned into your dark seekers, and then they got hungry and they killed and fed on everybody. Everybody! Every single person that you or I has ever known is DEAD! DEAD! There is no God. There is no God!
    Neville: I think this is why you're here. [Places vial containing the KV antidote into Anna's hand as he prepares to face the "dark seekers."]
    Anna: What are you doing?
    Neville: I'm listening.

## Quotes about I Am Legend

* Well, we actually, and this also is reflected in the casting of Emma Thompson in that cameo at the very beginning. Francis and Will, this would be chapter one on nerds on parade, spent an unbelievable amount of time at the CDC. I'm pretty sure [they] are probably infected right now with something, so you should all wear masks. But I think that [we] finally came to this idea that it's too easy to always assume that things will go wrong because someone was twirling their mustache. That, in fact, sometimes things go wrong out of people trying to do right. That was sort of trying to take a different turn on it. So that was where I think we came out. You really liked that. That was really you
   * Akiva Goldsman
* We shut down six blocks of Fifth Avenue on a Monday morning. That was probably poor logistics, which was poor planning. You realize that you have never actually seen an empty shot of New York. When we were doing it, it’s chilling to walk down the middle of Fifth Avenue. There is never an opportunity to walk down the middle of Fifth Avenue. At 2 o’clock in the morning on Sunday you can’t walk down the middle of Fifth Avenue.
    What happened is that it just created such a creepy energy. There are iconic buildings, there is a shot in the movie with the UN, there is Broadway, and it puts such an eerie, icky, kind of feeling on the movie when you see those shots. Logistically, it was a nightmare, but it absolutely created something that you can’t do with green screen, and you can’t do shooting another city instead of New York.
* It was such a wonderful exploration of myself. What happens is that you get in a situation where you don’t have people to create the stimulus for you to respond to. What happens is that you start creating the stimulus and the response. There is a connection with yourself, where your mind starts to drift so, in those types of situations, that you learn about yourself things you would never even imagination.
    In order to prepare for that we sat with former POWs and we sat with people who had been in solitary confinement. That was the framework for creating the idea. They said, ‘The first thing is a schedule. You will not survive in solitary if you don’t schedule everything.’ We talked to Geronimo ji-Jaga, formerly Geronimo Pratt of the Black Panthers, and he was in solitary for over three months. He said that you plan things like cleaning your nails. You will take two hours, which you have to because it’s on the schedule, which you have to just clean your nails. He said that he spent about six weeks and he trained roaches to bring him food. I’m sitting there like, ‘Oh my God.’ The idea of where your mind goes to defend itself. Either he really did train the roaches, which is huge, or his mind needed that to survive. Either way, you put that on camera and it’s genius.
    For me that was the thing, to be able to get into the mental space where whatever the truth was for Robert Neville didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered is what he saw and what he believed. How many people picked up on the mannequin shot at the end with the little turn of the head? You saw that? There are probably like six or seven of those in the movie. It was such a great exploration of what happens to the human mind that is trying to defend itself. For me, I’m a better actor for having had to create both sides of the scene with no dialogue.
   * Will Smith

## External links

* Official site
* Official trailer
* I Am Legend at Metacritic
* I Am Legend at Rotten Tomatoes
* I Am Legend quotes at the Internet Movie Database