"The Last Man on Earth," "The Omega Man" and Other Versions

Several years after "Legend" was published, Matheson was contacted by Hammer Films, the classy British horror studio, which wanted to turn it into a movie. Matheson flew to the UK, and wrote his own script adaptation. Hammer had just done their versions of "Frankenstein" and "Dracula," which starred Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Both were bloody films in their day, and when Hammer submitted the script for "Legend" to the British censors, they replied "Absolutely not!" and the studio realized they wouldn't be able to make the film in their native land.

Hammer then sold the script to a producer in Hollywood. Matheson wasn't pleased with the finished film, "The Last Man on Earth" starring Vincent Price, but he was also told if he took his name off the film he wouldn't get residuals. "I had four children, and I couldn't afford that, so I invented a pen name: Logan Swanson," he said.

In 1971 came the next big-screen adaptation, "The Omega Man," which is now a camp classic starring Charlton Heston at his hammy best. Before "The Omega Man," Matheson tried to get another adaptation of the story going with Hammer, who wanted the movie to stay close to the original story. Dan Curtis, the producer of the classic horror shows "Dark Shadows" and "Kolchak: The Night Stalker," was also interested in making a version of "Legend" that was faithful to the book.

The problem was the rights got mixed up when Hammer sold the script way back when. The rights for the script were owned by one business entity, the rights to the story by another. Once "The Omega Man" was up and running, Matheson wasn't even told about it, but it didn't matter. The finished film was so ridiculous, and so far removed from the story, "it didn't even bother me because nobody would even recognize it," he said.

Then "Legend" was considered to be remade in 1996, this time as a vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger with Ridley Scott directing. "The script wasn't bad," Matheson said. "It just wasn't my book. But I'm sure Ridley would have done a great job; he's a brilliant director." This version of "Legend" was shut down because it would have been too costly to make.

Before the current version with Will Smith was finally ready to go, Matheson joked that his novel would be remade two or three more times in his lifetime. He also wondered at the time whether "Legend" "would work as a film nowadays with everything that's been done. It's been done so many times, the book may be passé now." Yet as the success of the latest version proves, the idea of being the last person alive on a lonely, dangerous planet still hits a nerve after all this time.

"There seems to be something about my stories that hang on," Matheson said. "I wrote this over 50 years ago, and it's still valid. Not to pat myself on the back, but maybe my stories are timeless. I never knew that "The Twilight Zone" was going to last so long. It just sort of hung on year after year. People had to write letters back then saying, 'Don't cancel it,' but they're still showing it."

"I Am Legend" is available on DVD now and Matheson's novel can currently be found on the bestseller lists.

For more on "I Am Legend," read the Tom's Games review.

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