There is an appeal that comes with seeing a post-apocalyptic story unfurl before our eyes, especially one that sees a lone protagonist taking on the various challenges that exist in a world now devoid of human life and law. In the 2007 action thriller, I Am Legend, the Fresh Prince, Will Smith stars as the supposed last man on Earth, Dr. Robert Neville. Neville dedicates his days towards discovering a cure that will help eradicate the virus that has decimated much of the human population. Nearly twenty years on, Smith is still committed to making a sequel to the thriller, with a collaboration alongside Michael B. Jordan set to bring it to fruition.
Speaking with Entertainment Tonight, Smith, while promoting yet another sequel, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, revealed that him and Jordan aren’t giving up on a sequel to I Am Legend. Smith and Jordan plan to star and produce the sequel, with the King Richard star saying, “We had a couple weeks together about a month ago. I think it’s looking good.” At the end of the original 2007 thriller, Neville, who had conducted his research without contact with fellow humans, finally encounters a pair of them, opening up several routes for possible sequels, “[We have some] really solid ideas… I think we’re going to make it on screen together,” he said. “That dude is the truth, so I would love to do that.”
Given his years of experience, Smith admits that a sequel shouldn’t be made else it has the ability to “stand on its own right.” Speaking about the upcoming Bad Boys sequel and, by extension, the I Am Legend sequel, Smith said, “I told myself [what] I would never do to the fans is make a sequel just because it would be cool to have a sequel. This one lives up to my standards.” He goes on to add, “We took an aggressive shot with with this movie. We tried to keep it exciting — we wanted it to be a full-on popcorn movie but we wanted it to grow with the characters.”
Dr. Neville is Alive in the Sequel
In the 2007 original, Smith‘s character Robert Neville dies at the end of the first film. The DVD extras, however, contain an alternative ending where Neville survives. Acclaimed writer-producer Akiva Goldsman is tasked with bringing the I Am Legend sequel to life, and Goldsman confirms the sequel will exist in the world wherein Neville survives like the Richard Matheson novel the original movie is based on.
“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.”
No further details about the sequel have been released yet. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
via Collider