I Am Legend is getting a sequel, and it’s going to ignore the much-maligned ending of the first film.
The post-apocalypse drama starred Will Smith as one of the few remaining humans, while mutants run around attacking him. The theatrical version’s ending had Smith’s character Dr Robert Neville sacrifice himself to destroy a horde of the mutants, which led other humans to see him as a martyr and vow to continue the fight.
An alternate ending was filmed and first released on DVD, one aligning closer to the original novel. In this ending, Dr Neville realises the mutants are sentient, and they are as afraid of him as he is of them, and sets off to spread the message to other survivors.
In conversation with Deadline, Akiva Goldsman explains that he’s writing the sequel, as well as a follow-up to Constantine, as part of a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery that aims to turn one-off films into franchises.
Speaking about the sequel, which will star Michael B Jordan, Goldsman said: “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 [Richard] 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.”
