Rumours were flying for a few weeks that Johnny Depp would be added to the cast of Will Smith’s I Am Legend, playing the head bloodsucker and nemesis to Smith’s Robert Neville. But Depp was never actually signed to the movie – his character doesn’t appear in the current script, and given his involvement with Sweeney Todd – it’s not likely he will be.
There is now some official casting information, though – as Alice Braga (last seen in indie flick Lower City) and Salli Richardson (Anacondas) have been hired for the movie.
Legend, you’ll recall, tells the tale of Neville, who thinks he’s the last man left alive on Earth, trying to stave off madness as he deals with the fact that everyone else have become vampire-like creatures. Braga will play Alice, a young fellow survivor who Neville tries to protect from the blood-lusting creatures. Richardson is Ginni, Neville’s loving wife before the infection spreads.
With a script by Mark Protosevich and Constantine’s Francis Lawrence behind the megaphone, I Am Legend should arrive in late 2007 or early 2008.