Will Smith has made many box-office hits during his long career. But there was one hit movie whose failure would’ve been personally devastating for the mega-star. Will Smith felt ‘I Am Legend’ hinged on his performance I Am Legend was a project that had been circling around Smith for a long time.
He was initially supposed to do the project with Michael Bay. But plans fell through, and he’d eventually develop the movie with filmmaker Francis Lawrence. Smith felt that I Am Legend was a unique take on a genre of film he was already familiar with.
It wasn’t the traditional save-the-world blockbuster that helped Smith make a name for himself. Instead, the story would focus on a scientist who was seemingly the last and only human being on an apocalyptic Earth. The Oscar winner found himself more focused on the psychology of his character more than the movie’s special effects.
“What we were trying to do was to completely remove genre; so let’s look at the psychological deterioration of the character and let’s make the small art film version of this movie and then put all of the other elements – the blockbuster packaging – around it. We were just very specific to never say that to anybody at Warner Bros,” Smith once told BBC . But this made the feature perhaps more personal to Smith than any other film he’d done prior.
He felt the horror movie would live or die based on his performance alone. “There was definitely pressure this time,” he said. “I think.