Will Smith has reportedly landed the main role in an adaptation of Richard Matheson's classic science fiction novel I Am Legend.

The book has already been made into a movie twice before, as The Last Man on Earth in 1964 and The Omega Man in 1971.

Despite this, the Warner Brothers version has suffered a long and chequered development process. It was originally to have been directed by Ridley Scott back in 1997, with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the leading role. The film will now be directed by Francis Lawrence, director of Constantine.

I Am Legend is set in a post-apocalyptic USA, where the population has been turned into a form of vampires by a rogue virus. The story tells the tale of a lone human survivor in an infected world who is forced to realise that it is he who has become the monster as the other inhabitants begin to build a new society .

Production on the film is set to begin in the autumn, after Smith has finished work on the superhero drama Tonight He Comes.