There are many problems that afflict our modern world, and actor Will Smith has done his best to fight every one of them in style.
Among the problems that Smith has faced are racists, drug dealers, boxers, golfers, sharks, alien creatures, selfish robots, the US government, bad sci-fi westerns, and Tommy Lee Jones. One may think that after these victories, Mr. Smith has saved the world, but we are all forgetting two very important modern day plights: zombies and virus epidemics.
For his next film, I Am Legend, Will Smith will be fighting both zombies and a dangerous virus, which will appear to be responsible for people becoming zombies.
The pitch, from IMDB:
The lone healthy survivor of a biological war faces off against a new breed of nocturnal mutants.
According to CHUD.com, Mr. Smith is doing his research in preparation for the film:
[Smith et al.] recently visited the Center for Disease Control to learn about what sort of virus might cause such a worldwide catastrophe, and what the last healthy man on the planet might do to end it. [...]
The visit to the CDC focused on the science and possible characteristics of the movie's virus and how it might be handled, as well as the potential emotional state of Smith's character.
"It seemed very valuable for the actor and director to get accurate information from CDC because it appeared that they honestly wanted to accurately portray how a disease could spread around the world and change things for everybody forever," says the CDC's Richard Klomp, a guy with more titles than the eventual film's closing credits. "They asked the presenters several specific questions about, should we use a rabies-like virus, or something else? How long would it be viable in the environment? What would this guy’s laboratory look like—what kind of equipment would he need if he were trying to find a cure?"
Filming for I Am Legend is expected to begin this September, and the film should be released for the summer of 2007. It will be directed by Francis Lawrence (Constantine), and Akiva Goldsman (Batman and Robin, I, Robot *ahem*) is on the writing team.
