Last year, Warner Bros. Pictures announced plans for I Am Legend 2 with Michael B. Jordan in a leading role and Will Smith reprising his role as Dr. Robert Neville. However, the big problem with that idea is that Robert died at the end of I Am Legend. Regardless, an alternate ending was filmed in which Smith’s character survived. And according to screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, the sequel will canonize that alternate ending while further exploring the themes of Richard Matheson’s original novel.
“We trace back to the original [Richard] Matheson book, and the alternate ending as opposed to the released ending in the original film,” said Goldsman during an interview with Deadline. “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.”
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Additionally, Goldsman indicated that the sequel will have a significant time jump from the first film.
“This will start a few decades later than the first,” noted Goldsman. “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.”
Warner Bros. hasn’t set a date for I Am Legend 2 yet, or even a production schedule. So it may still be years away.
What do you want to see in the sequel? Let us know in the comment section below!
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