The Best Movie Actor In Hollywood!

Chapter 542

New York was still gripped by the cold in February. Standing on the bank of the East River, Phyllis shivered as the sea breeze cut through her thin clothes. She had just arrived in Manhattan from Los Angeles and was dressed too lightly, forcing her to clutch the poster she held in support of Matthew—a subconscious gesture that offered no real warmth.

But as she stood on that elevated spot, her eyes fixed on the riverside location where Matthew was filming his scene, she suddenly stopped feeling the cold.

For her, where Matthew was, there was sunlight and warmth. With filming still underway, Phyllis lowered her poster, pulled out her camera, aimed it toward the riverbank, and pressed the shutter several times, capturing a flurry of shots.

She had arrived in New York two days after the film crew, having had to scrape together the money for a plane ticket, and had already missed two days of Matthew's shoot.

"We're about to start filming!" a crew member shouted as he approached the crowd. "Please put your cameras away! Thank you for your cooperation!"

Hearing this, Phyllis lifted her finger from the shutter button and put her camera away. She was a seasoned veteran when it came to following film sets and knew that continuing to take pictures would interfere with the crew's work.

Everyone around her, fans and entertainment reporters alike, dutifully stowed their cameras. It was then that she saw Matthew and a rather buxom young woman sitting on a bench by the river, a camera pointed directly at them.

The sea breeze brushed their faces with a faint chill, but Matthew seemed oblivious, sitting on the cold bench and gazing at the Brooklyn Bridge before him. Alexandra Daddario sat quietly beside him, not saying a word.

***

Once all the scenes along New York's East River were finished, Guillermo del Toro yelled, "Alright, we're moving out to Washington Square! We'll start there in exactly twenty minutes."Taking the coat Bella handed him, Matthew slipped it on and stepped into his warm trailer, with Alexandra following close behind.

"Make yourself at home," Matthew said, walking over to the coffee machine. He poured a cup for Alexandra and asked, "Do you want any milk?"

Alexandra shook her head. "No, thank you."

Matthew placed the coffee cup on the small table in front of her before brewing a cup of tea for himself, wrapping his hands around the slightly hot mug.

Perhaps it was because he had lived in Texas and later Los Angeles, but Matthew found that he had a low tolerance for the cold, much lower than in his previous life.

He had once entertained the idea of buying a luxury apartment on the Upper East Side or Long Island, but he had completely abandoned that notion after a week of night shoots on the Brooklyn Bridge last winter.

Both Amanda and Helen had warned him that buying a luxury home in New York as an investment was unwise, especially in Manhattan, where property taxes were so high that they often outpaced any increase in the home's value.

"I recently read Richard Matheson's original novel," Alexandra said. "The version we're shooting is so different from the book."

Matthew took a sip of hot tea and nodded. "The changes are significant. The film essentially just borrows the book's premise. But movies have to adapt to the times. I imagine Akiva Goldsman probably had that in mind when he wrote his version of the script."

He had also read the original and could attest that the film's plot was entirely different.

The novel was also about the end of humanity, but instead of a viral vaccine, it was an old legend that had wiped out mankind: vampires.

Vampires were real, and by the time people realized it, it was too late. Robert Neville was immune by a stroke of luck. The rest of humanity had either perished or been infected. They were the living dead, driven by disease, still able to walk and attack, their only instinct to drink blood. Another type of infected was still alive, just as bloodthirsty, but had retained their intelligence.

Vampires of the latter type would gather around Robert Neville's house every night, hoping to capture him and drain his blood.

Similarly, the fate of Robert Neville's wife was completely different in the original; his wife died from the infection. Like in the film, the original Robert Neville went out every day, but his goal was to kill every vampire he could find. He would search every house, stake in hand, killing them by driving it through their hearts.

He went to the library to study books, using a microscope to find the pathogenic bacteria in their blood and learn how the germs spread, but he could never find a cure.

As for the dog, there was indeed an injured, surviving dog in the original. Robert Neville captured it, but it was already infected and died a week later. He also encountered a woman, Ruth, and told her about his research and methods for destroying vampires. He then learned that she was infected and a representative of the vampires who had retained their intelligence.

Ruth was infected, but her kind had found a way to continue living, organizing themselves into a new community. Robert himself had killed too many of the infected, and in the consciousness of this community, he had become a kind of "legend" to them. She had been sent undercover to learn about him.

However, unlike in the film, the Robert of the novel was more of a doctor than a fighter, and he failed to escape. During a planned attack by the infected, he was severely wounded. The woman reappeared at his side, and all she could do was give him poison, which he took, killing himself with the last of his human pride.

The last surviving human in the world perished.

The original was even colder and more desperate than the film. Robert didn't even have the ambition to save all of humanity.

But such is real life. There is no God, only microbes, hostility, and extinction.

There were moments when Matthew wondered if a film could have done justice to the original, but the mechanics of Hollywood commercial blockbusters dictated that it would never be made with such a storyline.

It was therefore inevitable that a film like this would end in the typical Hollywood hero fashion. Although the crew had prepared two versions, Akiva Goldsman, after much deliberation, decided to use Robert's death in a confrontation with the leader of the infected as the finale for the theatrical release.

The reason was simple: the other ending was too anticlimactic for a Hollywood commercial film.

The second version of the ending would only appear on the later DVD release, which could also serve as one of the DVD's selling points.

Soon, the crew arrived at Washington Square. A professional team had been preparing the location for two days, so filming could begin as soon as they arrived.

As with the Brooklyn Bridge, even with the intervention of Alexandra Daddario's father, New York City Hall couldn't grant the crew too much filming time—this was Manhattan, after all.

The two final scenes had already been shot in a studio in Los Angeles. All the scenes being filmed now were exterior shots in the square, with not many featuring Matthew.

One day would be dedicated to filming the infected breaking into Robert's house, and another day for the exterior shots of Matthew and Alexandra's character leaving New York with a little girl.

In just two days, the crew filmed all the scenes in Washington Square, and with that, filming for "I Am Legend" was complete.

Matthew followed the crew back to Los Angeles. He had only just returned to the City of Angels when he received an invitation from the organizing committee of the upcoming Academy Awards.