We need wait no more (well, a bit) for none other than Will Smith WILL be Neville in Warner Brothers big budget version of I AM LEGEND, the story previously filmed as Last Man On Earth (Vincent Price) and Omega Man (Charlton 'Gung-Ho' Heston). And to top that, Johnny Depp may be playing Ben Cortman, Neville's neighbour, who is the first to get infected and becomes the head vampire. Filming is supposed to begin in September for a Summer 2007 release. Francis Lawrence will direct. (I, for one, have been waiting for this for almost as long as we waited for V For Vendetta. Let’s hope they get it right.)

Hartnett Horror - Josh Hartnett is in talks to star in the film version of Steve Niles' popular graphic novel 30 DAYS OF NIGHT for Columbia Pictures and Sam Raimi/Rob Tapert's Ghost House Pictures. Hartnett will play one of the husband-and-wife sheriff duo of Barrow, Alaska, a town that literally goes dark for a month every year and thus becomes prey for vampires. When the undead arrive, the couple have to decide whether to flee or stand and protect their fellow townspeople. David Slade will direct 30 DAYS from a script by Stuart Beattie and Brian Nelson.

The Stoker family has officially recognized Holt’s screenplay, which is the first adaptation to receive such approval since the 1931 Bela Lugosi movie. A director is currently being sought for the project, which is planned as a big-budget, adult Gothic horror with top A-list actors (None of which are named at the moment). Holt acquired the rights to the best-selling book IN SEARCH OF DRACULA. He then travelled to Transylvania and spent a night at Bran Castle where Vlad Tepes is said to have spent time (Yeah, about three days I heard).

Holt also visited the prince’s palace in Romania, and wound up being knighted by The Transylvanian Society of Dracula into the Order of the Dragon (We’ve got a few of them in the LVG I believe). In addition, he was allowed by a Stoker family representative to read Stoker’s original handwritten manuscript (where he discovered Cotford’s existence), currently stored under glass at Philadelphia’s Rosenbach Museum.

The script, by Stewart Harcourt, was originally commissioned as a starring vehicle for Martin Kemp some four years ago but that production was cancelled when ITV realised that the BBC was planning it’s own version, which was to be written by horror novelist Stephan Gallagher. That version came to nothing and the BBC has acquired Harcourt’s script for themselves in order to make the two-hour TV movie a major part of the Christmas schedules.

Filming should take place in England during August under the directorship of Bill Eagles who has helmed recent episodes of Invasion and C.S.I. In an interview with The Guardian newspaper Producer Trevor Hopkins said, “Stewart Harcourt’s script paints a compelling and intelligent new adaptation of this classic story. Riddled with syphilis and sex, it penetrates the surface of Victorian society and plunges us into the dark heart of Dracula. This is my personal take on the classic Bram Stoker novel. And I hope its scenes of sex, horror and disease will blow the cobwebs off traditional period drama and provide a classic literary chiller perfect for a dark winter night.” So do we mate, so do we.