I Am Legend co-writer Akiva Goldsman calls out anti-vaxxers using Will Smith movie to fight Covid-19 vaccine

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I Am Legend co-writer Akiva Goldsman has highlighted the ridiculousness of people using the film as a reason not to get the Covid-19 vaccination.

Released in 2007, the thriller follows Will Smith as a lone survivor amid a zombie apocalypse that has wiped out humanity.

On Monday (9 August), a New York Times article was published, investigating an optical company’s efforts to get all its staff members vaccinated.

In a paragraph that Time magazine’s Washington correspondent, Vera Bergengruen, posted on Twitter, it’s revealed that one employee was “concerned because she thought a vaccine had caused the characters in the film to turn into zombies”.

It turns out that conspiracy theorists have been circulating this claim on social media, despite two big flaws: one, the film is fictional and two, it’s incorrect, as the plague in the film was caused by a genetically-reprogrammed virus as opposed to a vaccine.

Addressing the theory, Goldsman, who co-wrote the film with Mark Protosevich, commented: “Oh. My. God. It’s a movie. I made that up. It’s. Not. Real.”

The script is loosely based on a 1954 novel of the same name by Richard Matheson.