Today I explore one of the most famous film drafts in history, the Logan draft of I Am Legend. Is it as good as everyone says it is??
Genre: Sci-fi/horror
Premise: In near future Los Angeles, the last known man on Earth must battle a host of increasingly hostile monsters.
About: Doing something a little bit different today. This is the John Logan draft of I Am Legend, which most everyone whose read it has agreed is way better than the script/movie they eventually gave us. You have to understand that I Am Legend was a movie Hollywood desperately wanted to make. So they brought in a lot of different voices, both on the screenwriting and directing side, to create that perfect franchise-starting movie. Logan’s draft, while popular, was said to be “too dark” for the studio. So they brought in Ridley Scott, who seemed to agree, and threw that draft out. Scott would shepherd a much more studio-friendly version of the film, before eventually leaving the project himself. This new Scott-inspired draft became the template for the remaining drafts, leaving very little of Logan’s draft in tact. It’s high time that Scriptshadow figured out just how good this draft is.
Writer: John Logan (based on the 1954 novel by Richard Matheson)
Details: 113 pages (September 8, 1997 draft)
I don’t remember much about I Am Legend other than feeling like I’d wasted my money.
For a movie that had such an interesting premise, the whole thing amounted to Will Smith walking around a barren city with a dog.
I’d always heard about the famous “John Logan draft” of I Am Legend. But all those claims of “the original script was soooo much better” are usually folklore, a way for Hollywood types and movie geeks to sound hip and cool, not unlike music nerds who insist, “The Rolling Stones sounded sooooo much better when they played in small venues.”
And truth be told, unlike what some of the commenters on this site will have you believe, Hollywood doesn’t routinely ditch better drafts of a script for stinky ones. Writing a good script is an act of divine inspiration. So when you find one, you hold onto it, even if it doesn’t achieve the studio’s ideal marketing requirements.
Which makes me all the more curious about Logan’s draft. Would a studio really have passed it over if it were that good? Let’s find out.
Robert Nelville is an architect, which is in some ways ironic, since he’s the sole witness to society falling down and crumbling into dust. Everyone is dying, and dying quickly, including Robert’s lifeline, his beautiful and loving wife, Virginia. As much as Robert wants to believe, he knows her fate is the same as the rest.
The question is, why isn’t Robert’s fate the same? Why doesn’t he get this disease? Cut to five years later and Robert has secured a beautiful house in the Los Angeles hills, safe from the things that go on down in the city, things we soon see for ourselves, when Robert is forced to drive down there and scavenge.
This is always done during the day. And it isn’t until Robert’s car dies and he’s forced to stay in the city all night that we learn why. There are creatures, monsters you might call them, who wrap themselves in the remnants of the previous world like mummies. They are big, tall, and strong. They only come out at night. And they want to kill Robert really bad.
After nearly getting slaughtered by a group of these creatures, Robert’s able to knock one out and take it home. He sets it up in a secured room, and since these things crave blood, uses his own stored blood (kept for emergency transfusions) to start feeding it. As the days go by, the creature becomes more and more human, revealing a woman. It appears that Robert’s blood, no doubt special since it survived the sickness, is turning this monster back into what it used to be – a human being.
Soon, the woman, Emma, is talking, and remembering her past. The two form a bond. Robert begins to dream. If he can bring this woman back, there’s hope to bring others back. Maybe there’s a shot at saving humanity after all.
Unfortunately, the leader of these city monsters is on a mission to kill Robert. (spoilers) He finds his home, burns it, and kills Emma along with it. Once again, Robert is alone. Robert tries to flee but the creatures follow, until they finally meet in a Western-like showdown in a small town. Will mankind’s last hope finally be eliminated? Or will Robert, once again, find a way to keep the legend alive?
Let’s get right to it. Was this the same, better, or worse than the movie?
It’s not even close. This was A LOT BETTER.
And this is one of the reasons I love reading old drafts of scripts that became movies. Because you can see exactly where the writers/filmmakers made their choices, and pick out whether those choices were right or wrong. It’s one of the best forms of screenwriting education there is.
So what were the big differences here? Here’s the short list.
1) Logan’s draft starts slow as we meet Richard’s wife who’s dying. The final draft starts with a big Hollywood scene where thousands of people are running across bridges, trying to get to helicopters.
2) Logan’s draft takes place in Los Angeles. The final draft takes place in New York.
3) Logan’s draft has Richard as an architect. The final draft has him as a scientist/biologist.
4) Logan’s draft has the monsters wrapped up like mummies. The final draft has them as clear-to-see ugly monsters.
5) Logan’s draft focuses on the relationship between Richard and the captured creature. The final draft focuses on the relationship between Richard and another survivor (a woman) along with her son.
Now you’ll have to pardon me for any errors. I haven’t seen I Am Legend in a long time. But these are the differences to the best of my memory. So, let’s take a look at each change and figure out if they were better or worse for the film.
1) Slow start vs. Big start – To be honest, I could go either way on this one. In the end, I believe both worked. But if you put a homicidal zombie-creature to my head, I’d say I preferred Logan’s version as it was a little more emotional. We don’t really know what’s going on yet. We just know that Richard MUST see his wife, who’s in the hospital. And when he cons his way up to her floor and she’s a shell of a woman, we feel for him.
Slight Edge: Logan
2) Los Angeles vs. New York – New York is more iconic which makes seeing it overcome by nature more visually captivating. I think New York actually works better.
Edge: Final Draft
3) Richard as an architect vs. Richard as a scientist – This one we could debate for awhile. I know why the subsequent writers made this change. It gives Richard a much stronger goal, which gives the movie a much bigger engine: Richard trying to find a cure. And he can’t do that unless he’s a scientist or doctor. So that’s what they made him. However, Logan’s decision to make Richard an everyman led to a much more elegant and unobtrusive plot. The only man left on earth would probably have special blood. So it makes sense that it might cure these creatures. It didn’t feel so forced, I guess you could say.
Edge: Logan
4) Mummy-monsters vs. Unwrapped monsters – This isn’t even close. The wrapped up monsters in Logan’s draft were waaaaaay more interesting. They created a sense of mystery. What’s under all that wrapping? What do they look like? It’s basic Suspense 101. Later writers screwed that the fuck up by throwing the monsters in our face immediately. Boring. Hadn’t they heard the Jaws story (wait to show the monster)? Really pissed that they didn’t keep this.
Strong edge: Logan
5) Capture a monster and nurse it back to health vs. find a woman and her son and become BFFs – I think the one universal consensus after watching I Am Legend was that it fell apart when the woman and her kid entered the story. Both versions of the script realized they needed to change things up for the second half of the script. They couldn’t keep sending Richard into the city to bump heads with the creatures. We were bored of that. But here’s why Logan’s draft worked better. It created a sense of mystery. Much like how the unwrapped monsters lacked suspense, the woman and her child lacked suspense. They could just tell us everything they knew right away. That’s boring. With Emma (the captured creature), a whole new story was presented. Richard had to nurse this creature back to health, back into being a human. It was only over time that it learned how to speak and could convey where it came from. This choice pulled double-duty. It kept us curious and it allowed us to get to know and care for Emma. This choice along with the non-mummy one showed that the subsequent writers had no idea how suspense even worked, and that ignorance killed the movie.
Game-changing edge: Logan
Man, I’m so bummed! We actually could have had a classic movie had they filmed Logan’s draft! Whoever was in charge of making these decisions – particularly that last one – needs to lose their job or be fired or not be in the movie business (assuming they still are). You screwed up, man!
Here’s the script for you to read for yourself! – I Am Legend (Logan Draft)
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: SUSPENSE!!!! Or, if this definition works better for you: HINT-AND-SHOW. For suspense, you want to hint at something then show us later rather than showing us the second you introduce it. Like I said, the lack of suspense in the new draft killed this movie. Logan kept the creatures a mystery, forcing us to stick around to find out more, then made us wait for Emma to become human, forcing us to stick around to find out more.
