Per Deadline, a sequel to 2007 action-horror hit I Am Legend is in the works. Original star Will Smith will return, while Michael B. Jordan will join him.
I Am Legend followed 1964’s The Last Man On Earth and 1971’s The Omega Man as adaptations of Richard Matheson‘s novel, with Smith starring as Robert Neville, the only human in New York City to survive a deadly outbreak that stems from a drug meant to cure cancer. Unfortunately, it turned the rest of the population into vampire-like creatures called Darkseekers.
Akiva Goldsman, who wrote the first movie, will return to write the sequel and also produce the film alongside Elizabeth Raposo and Jordan under his Outlier Society production banner. Smith will produce via his Westbrook Studios with Jon Mone.
The original film, which made $585.4 million worldwide, was one of the last hurrahs for Smith has the #1 movie star in the world.
After the release of superhero film Hancock and drama Seven Pounds the next year, he took four years off before starring in Men In Black 3, by which time the superhero genre had taken over Hollywood and changed the landscape of the industry.
However, this sequel might have to do some retconning, as the original film ended – spoilers to a 15 year-old film coming – with Neville sacrificing himself to save his fellow survivors.
There was an alternate ending filmed that saw Neville learn that the reason the creatures are attacking his home is because their leader is the significant other to the latest ‘test subject’ that Neville had kidnapped in order to try and create a cure.
Realising that, Neville lets his test subject rejoin her brethren, abandons his research, takes the cure, and heads along with fellow survivors to Vermont. Unless Smith is only going to appear in flashbacks, that ending would make more sense to use in the sequel. But that would still require retconning.
Smith recently starred in King Richard, which garnered him a Best Actor Oscar nomination. He’s currently filming thriller Emancipation with director Antoine Fuqua. Jordan recently starred in Denzel Washington‘s drama A Journal For Jordan, and is currently filming Creed III, which he is also directing.
Smith and Jordan teaming up for a big blockbuster will be exciting. But for now, we’ll wait for news as to how this I Am Legend sequel will work.
#Peace.Love.IAmLegend
