Has anyone seen a preview of the creepy new sci-fi thriller "I am a Legend" due to hit theaters this December? If you go to youtube.com you can watch a preview of the film. The story revolves around the life of a single survivor, located in NYC five years from now, of a devestating manmade plague that has killed off most of the human population. I don't know the story ultra-well, but I did pick out an interesting indication from the preview that the director may be familiar with the Peak Oil theory (peak oil theory-- the idea that global oil production will reach a maximum and then decline).

If you look closely at the part of the preview where Robert Neville (played by Will Smith) is pumping gasoline at a filling station you will notice on the sign that the price for a gallon of regular gasoline is $6.63. Now, albeit, the movie is depicting a time 5 years in the future, but even with inflation a rise in gasoline prices to nearly seven dollars a gallon implies that the supply is not keeping pace with the demand. We are currently, as a thread in this section points out, facing $100 a barrel oil and the newspapers, the NYTimes included, are calling this the first demand led energy crisis. I doubt the Peak Oil theory plays any role in the the story's plot, although I cannot help but wonder if anyone else noticed this subtlety from the preview and, if so, wondered, like me, why the director chose to include this higher price for gasoline.