Adapting a screenplay is never an easy task, and Lance knew it well when he adapted "City of God". Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 The adaptation of "I Am Legend" is no less difficult than that of "City of God", especially when it comes to finding a balance between commercial appeal and character building.

In the previous life, in order to highlight the theme of the original novel, "I Am a Legend" specially filmed two endings, one is that Robert died with the zombie with a bomb, and the other is that after the zombie developed intelligence, the leader zombie finally reunited with his wife and retreated peacefully, and Robert and the other two survivors embarked on the road to find the same kind.

In fact, these two endings are closely related to the original novel, the former shows the tragedy of Robert's despair, from the accidental death of his wife and daughter, to the destruction of the world, to the death of his pet wolf dog, the torture of loneliness snuffs out all of Robert's hope little by little, even if he meets other survivors, Robert subconsciously refuses to believe, so he chooses the most tragic way to end the torture of loneliness.

The latter sublimates the theme, where humans feel lonely in the end times, as do zombies, who see each other as a threat, and the two races seem to have to find a way out. But in the end, everyone found that they were all seeking their own bonds, belonging, and harbors, and even zombies began to develop intelligently, breeding their own ideas, and forming a new species. The last days will unfold in a different way.

No matter which ending it is, being able to fully foreshadow, state, advance, and sublimate will make the movie extremely exciting and evocative. In the end, when the film was released, in order to increase the commercial element, the first version of the ending was adopted, creating a tragic scene of the end times, but unfortunately, the lack and weakness of the script caused the core theme of "loneliness" to lose its support point, so that the ending of both versions was not convincing, like a mirage - just looking beautiful.

Objectively speaking, after the release of "I Am a Legend", it caused a good response, especially to examine the end of the world from an ingenious perspective, which is unique and refreshing in the genre works, although the media comprehensive evaluation is average, but the audience has given a lot of support, and finally achieved a North American box office of 256 million, overseas box office 328 million, and global box office 585 million.

However, compared with its cost of 150 million and high publicity expenses, this achievement can only be said to be a small profit, and it does not meet the real expectations of Warner Bros. What really attracts the audience is Will Smith's personal charm, which is far from bursting with the energy of the movie itself.

Therefore, success is also Will, defeat is also Will.

In Reims's view, Azivá's biggest mistake was an imbalance in positioning. "I Am Legend" is indeed a commercial film, but it is a commercial film that can dig out the artistic connotation. Robert, as the leading actor, his reaction to the end of the world has postmodern enlightenment significance, interpreting the theme of the end times from another angle, simplifying or even ignoring this part, not only losing the essence of the original work, but also causing the film to lose its spirit.

It was as if a beautiful box contained a peerless treasure, but Aziva returned the pearl, and although the beautiful box was eye-catching, the real treasure was lost.

Lance was going to restructure the entire script, and he wanted to cut some of the first half of Robert's solo scene. Originally, this was the biggest gimmick of the movie, but because Aziva's script did not give Robert enough depth and thickness, the gimmick was punctured when Robert discovered other humans, and the subsequent highs/tides and sublimations were not able to keep up, and the story immediately became top-heavy.

Lance shortened Robert's role alone, on the one hand, to give more space to the later zombie war, increase the proportion of "feet", so that the high/high tide of the movie can be really exciting, this is the highlight of commercial films, and the final moment of Armageddon must be thrilling. In addition, Lance prefers the ending of zombie evolution intelligence, so he needs to lay the groundwork in the plot to make the zombies also "human", not only to set a trap to hunt Robert, making the confrontation full of conflict, but also to make the final battle exciting, and more importantly, the unexpected ending will sublimate the whole story. Therefore, the weight and content of the second half must be increased.

On the other hand, the space shortened in the first half will make the character of Robert richer and more three-dimensional, especially the whole process of adding psychological transformation, which can not only guide the audience to join the film together, but also increase the weight of the "head" and balance the proportion between the head and feet. Lance hopes to use a three-part structure to pave the way for Robert's loneliness and despair, so that psychological transformation can replace the post-apocalyptic survival in Aziva's version as the main story line in the first half of the story.

In Aziva's version of the script, there is a lack of a clear idea, and the tragedy of the end times, the loneliness of being alone, and the confrontation between humans and zombies all occupy an important proportion, which makes the story lack the concatenation of connotation, and all the plots are superficial. Now Lance intends to inject a clear main line: the "people" who survive under the end of the world, the protagonist is not the end of the world, but people, and the people here are also divided into "normal humans who are not infected with the virus" and "abnormal humans who are infected with the virus and become zombies", talents are the real protagonists, and people's emotional changes and psychological changes are the main line throughout.

This is also the most fascinating part of the original novel, and Lance will interpret a different kind of post-apocalyptic story from this unique perspective.

However, it is easy to talk on paper, but it is difficult to implement. Generally speaking, a page is a minute of the movie, how to measure the content within a page, how to achieve a balance between the structure, and more importantly, the high/low rhythm of commercial films must be carried out throughout, which is a very advanced knowledge, which is why top genre screenwriters and top genre directors are so popular.

Lance was not prepared to rush it, he started with the framework, some similar to the proposition essay, for example, Robert's time alone is controlled to about forty minutes, and for example, the zombie battle of Armageddon is controlled to about fifteen minutes, after determining the plot allocation of each part, the entire story outline becomes stable, and then start to fill in the content.

It's a huge undertaking that requires patience and, above all, talent.

Lance couldn't help but think of the famous work of the previous life, "Steven Jobs", starring Michael Fassbender. A biographical adaptation of the Apple godfather has been a hot topic since his death, and in 2013 there was a version starring Ashton Kutcher, which was met with rave reviews, and the narrative and flat and uninteresting characters did not show any Steven Jobs style at all, which directly led to Sony Pictures being tied up and eventually abandoning the plan and being taken over by Universal Pictures.

Aaron-Sorkin, the screenwriter who created "The Newsroom," "The Social Network," and "The White House," took over the adaptation.

In the original blueprint, they wanted to make the movie a unique proposition composition, the whole movie is a total of 90 minutes, consisting of three press conferences that changed Apple's fate, each press conference is allocated to 30 minutes, strictly adhering to the concept of real time - that is, there will be no time jumps in the movie, which also means that the screenwriter must have scalpel-like control over the lines, scenes, and characters, and truly match the movie time and real time perfectly; Then the film is directed by David Fincher, who has a sharp style and sharp editing, and pushes the unmistakable style of "The Social Network" to the extreme, showing Steven Jobs's hateful yet admirable personality from a unique perspective.

If such a goal is really achieved, then this work is bound to become a generation of classics. But the ideal is full, and the reality is cruel.

Allen encountered great problems in the process of adapting the script, not only did he need to make Steven Jobs's image plump and three-dimensional in a limited space, and truly show the personality charm of this giant; At the same time, it is also necessary to outline a number of important supporting characters to make the story full; In addition, it is also necessary to show the power of time in the process of historical change, so that people can feel the important role of Steven Jobs in the modernization of computers and the promotion of the Internet age.

It's so complex, it has to be done in 90 minutes, and every press conference has to be exactly 30 minutes. It's hard to get to the top.

In the end, Allen gave a wonderful script, but the thickness and depth of the script were still slightly weak; Danny Boyle, who took over the tube, completed a work that was far from his own style in an extremely awkward way, and the film lasted for 122 minutes, completely messing up this "proposition composition". The finished product is of good quality, and it is indeed a wonderful work, but it is not a flattering genre. Not only was the box office performance a big disappointment, it could almost be said to be a fiasco; And it didn't win more recognition during the awards season, only winning two Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress.

Now, Lance is facing a similar dilemma, he needs to accurately outline the psychological changes of the characters in a limited space, and cannot abandon the rhythm of commercial films, which is really not an easy task. However, the only thing to be thankful for is that "I Am Legend" has only one protagonist, Robert, which saves Lance a lot of effort, even if Lance intends to give some ink to the zombies, it is still within the scope of control.

Before he could begin writing the framework, Lance went into the library again and began to flip through books on psychology, this time with a need to learn about depression and autism, which was crucial in building Robert's character.

After "Fruit Hard Candy", Lance realized for the second time that he lacked knowledge, and he still had a lot to learn if he wanted to become a good screenwriter, a good director, and an excellent actor. (To be continued.) )