A good 35 years ago, I purchased this draft screenplay of I Am Legend from a collectible book dealer who knew I was a huge fan of the novel.
The first thing to strike me was that the film had gone into production under the novel's title, and I would later even acquire press materials referencing that original name before Warner Brothers rechristened the story The Omega Man.
Two things about the screenplay authorship caught my eye. First, the initial effort was solely credited to John William Corrington. No sign of his wife Joyce, with whom he would ultimately share screen credit. But even more interesting was the credit to William Peter Blatty. I have never seen another copy of this revision of the screenplay, nor any other version with Blatty's name on it. At the time of this draft, 9/1/1970, the publication of Blatty's novel The Exorcist was still nearly 9 months away! (For the record, the use of the word "and" as opposed to the use of an "&" between their names indicates that Blatty worked independently, and not with Corrington. Of course that still doesn't explain the absence of Joyce's credit, had she worked on the screenplay with her husband.)
The opening scene is not far removed from what appears in the finished film...
... and the same is true of the film's conclusion.
This revision does include a scene referenced in the film's closing credits — featuring Anna Aries as the "Woman in the Cemetery Crypt" — which confirms that the scene was in fact shot, and excised after the credits were prepared for release. Sadly the deleted footage has not yet turned up. Perhaps, as would become a legacy with
I Am Legend, it was deemed that
the image of a dead child (in a world where almost everyone in the world had died) somehow crosses a line.
Check back next week for another item from the I Am Legend Archive!
