The Last Man, Mary Shelleys Apocalyptic Tale

Before "The Last Man On Earth" starring Vincent Price, before "The Omega Man" starring Charlton Heston, and before "I Am Legend" starring Will Smith, the author of "Frankenstein" wrote another book called, "The Last Man". Mary Shelley‘s apocalyptic story is one of the earliest  examples of the last man on earth genre in modern science-fiction but no one ever made it into a feature film - until now. 

A.I.A. Productions is scheduled to complete post production this November on it's two-hour feature length interpretation of Mary Shelley's global pandemic, originally set in the 21st century that leaves one last, healthy man alone in a dying world filled with disease, blindness, starvation, intolerance and savagery. The movie, set in an American city in the desert southwest, uses a personal narrative style that chronicles the city-wide war between the diseased, disfigured survivors of the pandemic and the main character, Lionel Verney.

"In the movie,  Verney's character is no longer the passive observer of the book", according to James Arnett, the Director who adapted the book for the screen. "In literature, you can get away with having the main character play the role of the passive observer, as the P.O.V. of the narrative. But in cinema, that's what the camera is for and I already had one of those, so I moved the Lionel Verney character to the center of the conflict. In the book, Lord Raymond's character is the real show stealer, so I had Lionel Verney pick up the torch of Raymond‘s crusade to help amplify Mary Shelley's social themes and warnings in a more contemporary context while building a more compelling character arc." But the movie is not a completely introspective narrative or an art film, it's literally a one-man war against an entire clan of the Diseased, fighting over the remains of civilization.

The early buzz is that "The Last Man" may be in the running with "I Am Legend" because of its fast moving story but James Arnett points out, "My budget was about the same as Robert Rodriguez‘s ‘El Mariachi', so I kind of doubt I'll be competing directly with a Will Smith blockbuster any time soon in terms of scope. But I have the advantage of great source material that might be just as compelling as ‘I Am Legend", it depends on how they've handled it. The people behind that film are brilliant, so I hope I'm not completely eclipsed by their blockbuster."

"I knew all of this going in, so I built in some amazing production value no one would ever expect from a no-budget indie feature. We filmed all over the city, which isn't as easy as it sounds when you have to clear downtown traffic for blocks with nothing but duct tape or stage one of the biggest downtown machinegun battles since ‘Heat' using real machineguns firing 6,000 blanks in one day. Getting a Boeing 727 airliner downtown isn't an easy trick either, especially when you don't have the obvious resources to pull it off. But we always found a way because we always knew we were making someone's favorite movie in this genre. That's what motivated me to work 18-20 hours every day on this for over a year, hang out of helicopters and dangle from moving big-rig trucks to get the shots that will make this a richer experience for anyone who enjoys seeing our movie. By the end of the movie, after all of the carnage and mayhem, I hope I've succeeded in provoking the kind of thought Mary Shelley intended for a completely satisfying experience people will want to watch a lot more than once."
 
The trailer for Mary Shelley's "The Last Man" is now online on TerrorFeed with a Spanish language version of the trailer going online in the next few days.