While news first surfaced last year that Warner Bros. was moving ahead with a sequel to Will Smith’s hit I Am Legend more than 15 years after the original first hit theaters, today brings word that the follow-up is, indeed, moving forward. The news comes to us via Deadline, who reports that Akiva Goldsman and his company Weed Road have signed a new first-look deal with Warner Bros. But the real meat on the bones here has to do with a quote from Goldsman, who is penning the sequel.
Goldsman’s first two major projects as part of this new deal are the previously announced Constantine 2, as well as I Am Legend 2. The writer/producer spoke a bit about the latter, which will bring back Smith and also star Michael B. Jordan (Creed, Black Panther). Rather interestingly, it will apparently try to stay a little closer to the spirit of the source material, aka Richard Matheson’s acclaimed novel. Says Goldsman:
“This will start a few decades later than the first. I’m obsessed with The Last of Us, where we see the world just post-apocalypse but also after a 20-30-year lapse. You see how the earth reclaims the world, and there’s something beautiful in the question of, as man steps away from being the primary tenant, what happens? That will be especially visual in New York. I don’t know if they’ll climb up to the empire state building, but the possibilities are endless. We trace back to the original Matheson book, and the alternate ending as opposed to the released ending in the original film. What Matheson was talking about was that man’s time on the planet as the dominant species had come to an end. That’s a really interesting thing we’re going to get to explore. There will be a little more fidelity to the original text.”
Much to digest there. The big thing has to do with the ending. As many viewers will surely recall, I Am Legend diverted heavily from the book, and it saw Smith’s Robert Neville die. The ending was widely criticized. Yet, an alternate ending was shot that stuck much closer to the book, and, apparently, that’s the ending Goldsman and the filmmakers are going to anchor this sequel to. For those who may need a refresher, here are both endings.
The real potential problem here is the fact that I Am Legend made a really impressive $585 million at the global box office all those years ago, not to mention the numerous people who have since seen it on cable, DVD, etc. Yet, the vast majority of those people only know the ending as it exists in the theatrical cut. So, how on Earth will they explain making this alternate ending canon? It’s a challenge I don’t personally envy, but one that absolutely must be addressed.
Setting that aside, it’s not hard to understand why Warner Bros. would make a sequel to such a big hit. Smith is still a big star (setting aside the whole Oscars business from last year), as is Jordan. It’s been just long enough that this almost ventures into “legacy” sequel territory that can play heavily on nostalgia for people of a certain age. This can work if they find a way to get around this revisionist ending business.
I Am Legend 2 does not yet have a release date set.
