A planned sequel to Hollywood star Will Smith's 2007 zombie apocalyptic movie "I Am Legend" will flip the script on what happened to his character in the end.
Smith is set to return for the project with Michael B. Jordan also joining on board. The sequel will mark the first major collaboration between the duo.
Oscar-winner Akiva Goldsman is set to write the sequel and produce along with Elizabeth Raposo and Jordan under the Outlier Society production company. Smith is also set to produce via his Westbrook Studios with Jon Mone.
"I Am Legend" is loosely based on the 1954 novel of the same name by Richard Matheson. It grossed $585.4 million worldwide.
The movie starred Smith as Robert Neville, the only human in New York City to survive a deadly outbreak that stems from a drug meant to cure cancer which has turned the rest of the population into creatures called the Darkseekers.
"I Am Legend" had two alternative endings. The theatrical cut featured Neville sacrificing himself and taking several of the creatures with him in an explosion as he provides a distraction for his fellow survivors, Anna and Ethan (played by Alice Braga and Charlie Tahan), to escape along with a sample of his new cure.
The alternate ending saw Neville learning that the behind the creatures attack on his home, which was due to the creatures' leader the significant other was the latest "test subject" that Neville had kidnapped to try and create a cure.
Neville lets his test subject rejoin her brethren, abandons his research, takes the cure, and heads along with Anna and Ethan to Vermont.
Ever since the sequel was announced in March 2022 and there has been a lot of speculation over how that could be happening.
Speaking to Deadline, Goldsman explained that the sequel will be set a few decades later than the first.
“I’m obsessed with [the HBO series] ‘The Last of Us, where we see the world just post-apocalypse but also after a 20-30-year lapse,” he said.
“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,”.
Goldsman added, “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,” he noted.
“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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