Writer Akiva Goldsman has confirmed that I Am Legend 2 will pick up from the alternate ending not shown in theaters.
Warner Bros. Pictures
Ever since it was announced that I Am Legend would be getting an official sequel with Michael B. Jordan co-starring with a returning Will Smith, there’s been a lot of speculation over how that could be happening. At the risk of revealing a 16-year-old spoiler, it should be noted that Smith’s character dies in the theatrical version of I Am Legend that premiered in movie theaters in 2007. The DVD release that would follow included an alternate ending that more closely resembled the Richard Matheson novel, wherein Neville manages to survive.
It had seemed likely that I Am Legend 2 would be following the alternate ending if the plan was indeed to bring back Smith as Neville. That’s now been officially confirmed by co-writer Akiva Goldsman, who’s penning the upcoming sequel. In an interview with Deadline, Goldsman offered some details about I Am Legend 2, noting how the story picks up decades after the events of the first movie.
“This will start a few decades later than the first. 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.”
Goldsman also notes how the sequel will be more faithful to Matheson’s original story while verifying how the new movie acknowledges the alternate ending of the first film.
“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.”
Related: I Am Legend 2 Talks Between Director & Writer Have Begun, Confirms Francis Lawrence
I Am Legend’s Theatrical Ending Didn’t Happen According to Part 2
Warner Bros.
Francis Lawrence is also coming back to direct the sequel. Producer Jon Mone has previously teased how the new movie was put into motion after Michael B. Jordan came to them with a pitch for I Am Legend 2 that impressed both Will Smith and Akiva Goldsman. As Mone told Deadline last year:
“It is an unbelievably cool idea, an idea that made [Will] and Akiva believe that it was worth telling another story. I really can’t say [if it’s based on any of the graphic novels], but it’s based on the minds of Will, and Akiva, and Michael B. Jordan, who came up with this incredible angle on how you can continue that story.”
I Am Legend 2 doesn’t yet have a release date.
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