I have not read I am Legend or The Last man myself and I was just wondering if someone who has can compare them. This movie felt an awful lot like The Omega Man version of I am Legend to me only without the main character trying to save people. Are the novels just that similar or did the director borrow from both sources?
shareThe conventions for the post apocalyptic/last man genre require a hero/messiah fighting for a new chance for humanity. When adapting the book, I tried to think what Mary Shelley would want to see updated. Obviously, she would not want to follow any convention, she'd break them.
That's why I treated the screenplay for The Last Man as more of an anti-omega man. The "Omega Man" character could have left town for somewhere peaceful and quiet but he made a conscious decision to stay for the sake of exterminating the mutants.
Ultimately, I used as many of the interesting metaphors from Mary Shelley that still applied today, put it into an action movie format (re: Omega Man) then gave it a Mathesonesque ending (he was one of the Twilight Zone writers) and turned the genre upside-down for a different kind of post apocalyptic movie someone would want to see.
If I followed the conventions, I'd just have another low-budget, post apocalyptic genre film instead of something with a lot more story depth.
I'm working 24/7 on a few other films at the moment (for other filmmakers) so I'm glad I can come here to answer you!