I Am Legend Remake Can Avoid The Biggest Will Smith Mistake

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Warner Bros. is working on a new adaptation of I Am Legend, one that hopefully avoids the biggest mistake of Will Smith's version. While he might not be quite as famous as someone like Stephen King or H.P. Lovecraft, Richard Matheson was another author with a huge influence on the horror genre, as well as the sci-fi and fantasy realms. In addition to writing dozens of novels and short stories, Matheson was also a pretty accomplished screenwriter, penning both movies and TV shows. However, this impressive legacy has arguably been tarnished for a modern generation by a major change made to Will Smith's I Am Legend adaptation.

While Matheson, who passed away in 2013 at the age of 87, boasts many worthwhile entries on his bibliography, his most famous written work is no doubt the post-apocalyptic 1954 novel I Am Legend. The book focuses on Robert Neville, who believes himself to be the sole survivor of a viral pandemic that's turned all those infected by the Krippin Virus into vampire-like creatures. So popular and influential isI Am Legend — George Romero's Night of the Living Dead was heavily inspired by the book — that Matheson's story has been adapted into three different movies.

Related: Why The Omega Man Is The Weakest Movie Version Of I Am Legend

Vincent Price starred in 1964's Last Man on Earth, with Charlton Heston leading 1971's The Omega Man, followed by Will Smith's I Am Legend in 2007. Recently, news broke that Warner Bros. is reportedly developing a newI Am Legend project, either a movie or TV show that would likely reboot the property. If that does indeed happen, the I Am Legend remake desperately needs to correct the 2007 movie's biggest mistake, and that's its ending. The Smith movie greatly altered the