Will Smith has done a fair share of movies that have allowed him to have more than one iconic character. From The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to Bad Boys, the list is one that only gets longer. One of these roles included that of Dr. Robert Neville in I Am Legend. The movie managed to stand out massively and is still highly regarded in the science fiction genre.
The movie had various aspects that managed to grip the world and the upcoming sequel has made the fans even more excited for what the post-apocalyptic world of the movie could hold for them. The movie had to go through a lot of changes since the book’s rights were first taken by Warner Bros. Discovery and that may have almost made Smith lose the role.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Almost Took Will Smith’s Movie
I Am Legend is a movie when thought about, will always include Will Smith as the lead. Fans were gripped by the idea and when the movie came out in 2007, there was no other person they could ever imagine taking over. Before Francis Lawrence, Ridley Scott was set to direct the movie and his first choice was most definitely not Smith. When he was the director of the movie, Smith had barely any exposure outside of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and did not have a single chance of gaining the role.
Scott’s first choice had been none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger. The actor had then been drifting away from action roles, finding himself doing more comedy movies as well as kids’ movies. For a while, the actor had been running low on luck with regard to his reputation as an action hero. Scott believed that I Am Legend would have been the perfect opportunity to bring him back into the genre and settle him once again as a hero made for the action genre.
Will Smith’s I Am Legend Went Through Various Changes
Ridley Scott’s initial plan for the movie had a lot of what WBD could not offer. I Am Legend was not supposed to be set in New York but, in Los Angeles. Moreover, a lot of the set was heavily costly and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s estimated fee was only adding to the budget. The required budget for the movie was turning out to be $108 Million. This did not sit well with WBD as side by side The Matrix was only needing $65 Million.
Seeing this difference, the studios did not even give Scott a chance to improve on the script and scrapped the movie for the time being. Warner Bros. Discovery had not been having a great time as it kept releasing big-budget science fiction movies back to back only to see them flop big time at the box office. They found another reason why hiring Schwarzenegger would not have been a good idea and the actor, unfortunately, proved it himself in Batman and Robin. This, however, led the way for Lawrence and Smith to create a masterpiece.
Source: Collide
