The plot of the movie “I am a legend” is now part of the anti-vax conspiracy theory



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Some opponents of the COVID-19 vaccine have made Will Smith the star of their latest bizarre anti-vax theory.

A group of skeptics used Smith’s 2007 action film “I’m Legend” – in which an unsuccessful attempt to cure cancer triggers a zombie apocalypse – as their last excuse not to get stung.

At a Bronx eyewear store, owner John Bonizio, 63, says he encountered resistance from an employee who got hooked on the movie when he tried to convince staff to get the vax, a reported the New York Times.

The employee didn’t even have a good grasp of the movie itself, mistakenly explaining to the owner that “a vaccine had turned the characters in the movie” I Am Legend “into zombies.”

In the movie, a genetically reprogrammed virus actually caused the zombie apocalypse.

Will Smith in "I'm a legend"
One of the film’s writers – in response to “I’m a Legend” used to convince people not to get vaccinated – said, “Oh. My God. It’s a movie. I made it up. .Alamy Stock Photo
Anti-vaccine protesters hold placards outside the Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas.
Some believe that anti-vaccines are using the film to bypass Facebook’s fact-check filters against disinformation.
MARK FELIX / AFP / AFP via Getty Images

Yet the fictional plot continues to crop up in social media posts and message boards among anti-vaxxers who object to being shot.

Some believe they are citing the film so as not to be flagged by social media fact-checking filters.

“It looks like the anti-vax propogandes are using a movie meme to evade Facebook’s fact-checking filters?” Wagner James Au wrote on Twitter. “This is apparently a movie, contains no mention of COVID and the text is in the image so the keyword ‘vaccination’ is not reported. But the damage was done all the same.

Anti-vaccine and anti-mask protesters gather in Union Square, Manhattan.
Anti-vaccine and anti-mask protesters gather in Union Square in Manhattan.
Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

One of the film’s writers tried to intervene to prevent anti-vaccines from quoting him.

“Oh. My. God. It’s a movie. I made that up. Sound. Not. Real,” co-writer Akiva Goldman wrote on Twitter.



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