When I was about 14 I set my VCR to record a little-known American independent movie, Spanking the Monkey. It’s about a boy who sits in his bathroom with said monkey while his dog, a German Shepherd, waits outside barking and generally taking his mind off the important task at hand. He then enters into a disturbing carnal relationship with his mother. Or at least, that’s what I remember.
If only I was a visionary screenwriter, because then I would have made the leap of imagination necessary to say…’hang on, what if he’s having a relationship with the dog? And what if he’s Will Smith instead of a spotty American nobody? And, wait just one second, what if he’s fighting off 28 Days Later-style vampire zombies and he’s the last man on earth? It’s gold I tells ya, GOLD!"
And so, I’m led to presume, the most recent adaptation of Richard Matheson’s book, I Am Legend, was born.
In I Am Legend 2, expected out in 2010, we travel back in time (but still in the future) to when the virus first erupted and follow the story of Robert Neville and Sam, his loving German Shepherd, as their relationship blossoms through a series of montages in which they try on hats and he plays the piano while she bats her eyelids at him over a Manhattan cocktail.
Or at least, that’s what I’m hoping for.
That, or they remove all record of 2007’s I Am Legend and try again, this time actually bothering to read the book. If they do, they’ll create a masterpiece and properly explain the whole point of the story – Neville’s slow realisation that he is not fighting the monsters; he IS the monster. (I know – genius). That the vampire-zombie fellows have evolved beyond him, they are the next step in human evolution. And he is the scourge of their society. He is their Legend.
Now that would be cracking.
So, we can all expect a story in which a solider from that base they ended up in at the end of the last one goes out into the world of the vamzies (vampire-zombies – but a little bit effeminate) to collect a vital piece of technology/vial of blood which will help mankind. He takes with him that girl from the first one, or whoever replaces her, and at least half the can is wasted on meaningful looks between the two.
Oh, and they save a child.
Oh, and she gets bitten but it turns out she’s immune and she looks like the Childlike Empress from the end of the Neverending Story and explodes in a burst of light that wipes the vamizies out and leaves the humans with superpowers.
Or something like that.
It's a tenuous enough suggestion at this point, but it's enough to get me excited: Keanu Reeves has not quite said 'no' to a possible third installment of the air-guitar-playing time-travelling, dimension-crossing wonderment that is Bill and Ted. At least, according to MTV movies.
