Producer/screenwriter Akiva Goldsman confirmed the long-awaited sequel to “I Am Legend” is finally happening! Will Smith will be reprising his role from the 2007 post-apocalyptic action thriller. But this time, the last man on earth will be joined by Michael B. Jordan, decades after the events of the first film.
“This will start a few decades later than the first,” Goldsman said. “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.”
The “I Am Legend” sequel will also treat the alternate ending to the first movie as canon. In that ending, Smith is able to fend off a final attack from the infected and survive. So far it seems that this film will also dive deeper into the Richard Matheson novel it was based on. “We trace back to the original Matheson book, and the alternate ending as opposed to the released ending in the original film,” Goldsman explained. “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.”
Goldsman also made it clear that sequels to “I Am Legend” and 2005’s “Constantine” were both top priorities for Warner Bros Pictures. They are also part of a multi-year first-look deal with Goldsman’s production company, Weed Road.
Check out the trailer for the original film below:
