Social media users shared posts online claiming that the movie ‘I Am Legend’ starring actor Will Smith turned into 2021 and characters changed into zombies due to vaccines. This assertion is untrue.
Examples can be seen here and here.
The text in the reports reads: “Just want to remind you that the year 2021 was in the movie I am Legend, and that people turned into zombies because of the wrong vaccines, had a wonderful day.”
The 2007 film “I Am Legend” is a science-fiction action film in which the scientist Robert Neville (played by Smith) believes he is the only survivor of a plague that kills most people and turns others into zombie-like creatures (www.imdb .com / title / tt0480249 /, here). Throughout the film, he struggles to find other survivors and find a cure.
There are instances in the film where the year is mentioned. In a screenplay of the film that is visible here, towards the beginning of the film, Smith’s character, Dr. Robert Neville, himself to test possible serums to cure the plague. He says: “Dr. Robert Neville, September 5, 2012, GA Series, Serum 391. ”
The year is also mentioned in a summary of the IMDB here and an overview here.
Reuters Fact Check earlier dismissed the allegation that a vaccine caused characters in the film to become zombies here.
It was not a vaccine, but a modified measles virus used to treat cancer (cancer is not caused by a virus, as can be read in more detail in a Reuters fact check here).
VERDICT
Untrue. The movie “I Am Legend” took place in 2012 and the characters did not turn into zombies due to a vaccine.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.