According to reports, mega-star Will Smith has latched on to a new project called The Legend of Cain. Smith is planning to not only produce the movie through his own Overbrook Entertainment, but also star in the title role of Cain. The star’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith, James Lassiter, and Ken Stovitz will also produce.
The movie is said to be a re-telling of the biblical tale of the brothers Cain and Abel. In most versions of the story, the brothers are the sons of Adam and Eve; Cain is a farmer and Abel a shepherd with both making offerings to God based on their trades. When God accepts Abel’s sacrificial animal offerings but rejects Cain’s offerings of produce, the latter becomes enraged and kills his brother in cold blood bringing the deadly sin into the world.
On its own this content could probably make a decent film, but The Legend of Cain will take the old story a step further with a little twist: vampires. Yes, it looks like the plan is for Cain to also be a bloodsucker, likely pegging him as the very first vampire.
If this movie reached full development and finds a studio to greenlight it, Smith and company will have to have some pretty magnificent tricks up their sleeves. I’m sure right this moment many of you are staring at your computer screen blankly or scratching your heads, and I’m with you. The truth is this just sounds like a strange mix to conjure up, but with classic stories like Pride and Prejudice getting zombies and Abraham Lincoln fighting vampires, anything is possible these days.
No word yet on a timetable for The Legend of Cain. Will Smith is getting ready to start filming Men in Black III in August, so this is still a long ways off for sure.
[Source: Deadline]
That’s straight out of Vampire: The Masquerade. More or less.
Yeah, White Wolf must be going spare.
It’s not that strange a mix really – the Vampire: The Masquerade telling of the story made a nice kind of sense, vampirism being the ‘mark of Cain’ laid down as a curse by Yahweh in addition to lots of other little biblical details. In fact the Cain and Abel story is ripe for reinterpretation in all sorts of ways – just look at Command & Conquer or the Sandman comics.
Im all for not suppressing ideas and thought, but this is kinda hokey. Not only that, you don’t really want to be hokey when touching a religion as well-believed by many an American. Not saying to run from controversy, just saying this seems like a sacrifice for such a small payoff.
I’m not familiar with Vampire: The Masquerade, but do you see this particular movie playing out like that or I Am Legend with the addition of Smith?
That’s my worry.
It is insanely bad. Yahweh “curses” Cain with vampirism, thereby condemning innocents to suffer at the hands of vampires? Who is really getting cursed here? It is even more nuts than some of the doctrinal stuff people believe.
Vampire: The Masquerade wasn’t the first version of Cain being a vampire, it’s been around here and there, actually I think even “the legend of Kain” came from the bis of the story, either way, its no surprise to me.
Though I do hope it’s better then the re-telling/movie of I Am Legend, as that was VERY different from the original story.
This will be the Book of Nod Lite™ and will reek of the over-accessibility that I Am Legend with its tacked-on spiritually optimistic ending brought to the cinema.
@Feskin. Blame Lilith, not Yaweh.
Stories about Cain being the first vampire are as old as the hills. I hope they do well with their telling of this old story. Just have to wait and see.