When I Am Legend was released, post-apocalyptic tales weren't quite as commonplace as they are now. The 2007 movie is fondly remembered by those who saw it, though, and there have been rumblings about a sequel for several years. However, it wasn't until fairly recently that we learned Will Smith is going to return to the franchise.
He'll star in and produce the project alongside Michael B. Jordan, with the prevailing theory being that Smith will pass the torch to his co-star, setting the stage for a new series of movies set in this world.
Deadline (via SFFGazette.com) recently caught up with writer Akiva Goldsman, and while he declined to share specifics on how Jordan fits into the follow-up, he did say Richard Matheson's novel will be a big inspiration.
"This will start a few decades later than the first," he teases. "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 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," Goldsman continues. "That’s a really interesting thing we’re going to get to explore. There will be a little more fidelity to the original text."
We're not sure if this means Smith will be aged up or whether he'll only appear in flashbacks, but it's interesting that the sequel is going to pick up after the original's alternate ending rather than what we saw in theaters. It's also worth noting that it's close to 16 years since the first movie came out, so adding another decade or so to that might not be too hard.
I Am Legend followed Robert Neville (Smith), a brilliant scientist, who was a survivor of a man-made plague that transforms humans into bloodthirsty mutants. He wanders alone through New York City, calling out for other possible survivors, and works on finding a cure for the plague using his own immune blood.
While it ended with Neville seemingly killing himself and one of the monstrous Darkseekers, the aforementioned alternate ending saw him survive.
Be sure to stay tuned for updates on I Am Legend 2 as we have them.