"I Am Legend" : The movie

[phantomstranger]

Armory's a fright site!

Will have part in vampire flick

By FRANK LOMBARDI
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU

It's only fitting that Hollywood has come knocking on the multidoored and nearly shuttered Kingsbridge Armory.

The Warner Bros. studio is in the process of closing a deal to rent the armory for seven months for about $350,000, according to city officials who control the armory.

Given its troubled state, the armory, with its gigantic bay-studded roof and red brick exterior, might make a suitable set for a creepy Steven King-spawned film thriller. Something with a title like, "The Armory that Wouldn't Die."

But it's not the outside that Warner wants. It's the equally massive - and somewhat creepy - inside.

The former drill hall would be turned into a preproduction and studio set for a movie version of Richard Matheson's famed sci-fi novel, "I Am Legend."

His novel had been based in Los Angeles and features the survivor of a biological war doing battle with nocturnal mutant vampires.

The book is said to have inspired George Romero's campy, zombie-filled film favorite "Night of the Living Dead."

Warner Bros. is in the process of closing a deal with the city's Economic Development Corp. to rent the entire first-floor interior of the armory for the hefty sum of $50,000 a month. City officials said the studio plans to rent the armory's 190,950-square-foot interior from Feb. 27 through Sept. 30.

Built between 1913 and 1917, the armory - which takes up four square blocks in Kingsbridge Heights, the Bronx - once featured the largest indoor military drill space in the world. The state turned the deteriorated building over to the city in 1996, and its National Guard units shifted their training and other uses to several annex buildings.

While the city pumped money into repairing the leaky roof and crumbling exterior, its efforts to redevelop the armory into a retail-entertainment center, with community facilities, crashed in the waning years of the Giuliani administration.

The EDC's efforts to rekindle development interests remain bogged down because of the difficulty of finding new headquarters for the two Guard units that still train there, including the 258th Field Artillery, which has long been the armory's home unit.

Warner officials could not be immediately reached on details of the film, such as who would star in it. But a city official said the studio plans to shoot the entire film in various New York City locations.

Originally published on January 26, 2006

[mothermold]

this film is long overdue.there's been talk for years about making it and it never happened,unfortunately the director's the same guy that gave us that botched hellblazer film.

[The_Return]

Ive never read the book, but Last Man on Earth was based on it, no? One of my favourite movies, I guess I aughta read the novel...

[Femme Fatale]

The movie "Last Man on Earth" with Vincent Price was based on the story "I Am Legend" (which I highly recommend that you read). The movie "Omega Man" was also based on the story as well but I have to stress that it was loosely based.