Theatrical
I Am Legend was originally slated for a November 21, 2007, release in the United States and Canada,[52] but was delayed to December 14.[53] The film opened on December 26, 2007, in the United Kingdom,[54] and Ireland, having been originally scheduled for January 4, 2008.[35]
In December 2007, China temporarily suspended the release of all American films in the country,[55] which is believed to have delayed the release of I Am Legend. Will Smith spoke to the chairman of China Film Group about securing a release date, later explaining, "We struggled very, very hard to try to get it to work out, but there are only a certain amount of foreign films that are allowed in."[36]
Premieres were held in Tokyo, New York, and London. At the London premiere in Leicester Square, British comedian and actor Neg Dupree was arrested after pushing his way onto the red carpet and running around shouting "I am Negend!".[56] The stunt was part of his "Neg's Urban Sports" section of comedy game show Balls of Steel.
Marketing
The film's teaser trailer was attached to the screenings of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. And a tie-in comic from DC Comics and Vertigo Comics was created, I Am Legend: Awakening.[57] The project drew upon collaboration from Bill Sienkiewicz, screenwriter Mark Protosevich, and author Orson Scott Card. The son of the original book's author, Richard Christian Matheson, also collaborated on the project. The project advanced from the comic to an online format in which animated featurettes (created by the team from Broken Saints) were shown on the official website.[58]
In October 2007, Warner Bros. Pictures, in conjunction with the Electric Sheep Company, launched the online multiplayer game I Am Legend: Survival in the virtual world Second Life. The game was the largest launched in the virtual world in support of a film release, permitting people to play against each other as the infected or the uninfected across a replicated 60 acres (240,000 m2) of New York City.[59] The studio also hired the ad agency Crew Creative to develop a website that was specifically viewable on the iPhone.[60]
Home media
The film was released on DVD on March 18, 2008, in two editions: a one-disc release, including the movie with four animated comics ("Death As a Gift", "Isolation", "Sacrificing the Few for the Many", and "Shelter"), and other DVD-ROM features, and a two-disc special edition that includes all these extras, an alternative theatrical version of the movie with an ending that follows closer to that from the novel,[9] and a digital copy of the film.[61] On the high-definition end, the movie has been released on the Blu-ray Disc format and HD DVD format along with the DVD release, with the HD-DVD version being released later on April 8, 2008.[62] Both HD releases include all the features available in the two-disc DVD edition.[62] A three-disk Ultimate Collector's Edition was also released on December 9, 2008.[63]
The film has sold 7.04 million DVDs and earned $126.2 million in revenue, making it the sixth-best-selling DVD of 2008.[64] However, Warner Bros. was reportedly "a little disappointed" with the film's performance on the DVD market.[65]
