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Sixteen years after Will Smith’s I Am Legend hit theaters (his last sci-fi blockbuster film, After Earth, bombed horribly), it’s finally receiving a sequel and it’ll feature another Hollywood heavyweight to help conjure up some much needed hype.
According to Variety, I Am Legend 2 is going into development and will star Will Smith alongside one of Hollywood’s hottest actors, Michael B. Jordan. Though details about the plot aren’t known, it will be interesting to see what direction the film goes in. By the end of the first film Will Smith had sacrificed his own life to save the lives of his fellow co-star Alice Braga. While there was an alternate ending in which Smith survived, many people didn’t get to see that as it wasn’t included in the theatrical release of the film.
Though the film was based on Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel of the same name, in the novel, Smith’s character of Robert Neville was the last man alive in a world of vampires and not mutated human beings like in the film. Many felt that the film should’ve stayed true to the vampire material from the book, but writer Avika Goldsman decided to go a different route with the screenplay and ultimately we got mutated humans who acted a fool. Now that he’s signed a multiyear deal with Warner Bros., he’s ready to revisit the mutated world that Robert Neville is stuck in.
Variety reports:
Goldsman revealed that the sequel will follow the ending of Matheson’s novel and the original film’s alternate ending in which Smith’s character survives.
“We trace back to the original Matheson book, and the alternate ending as opposed to the released ending in the original film,” he said. “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.”
So, are we finally getting vampires? Will the humans mutate into blood sucking demons of the night? We kinda hope so. Who will Michael B. Jordan play in the film? We have no idea. Naturally, many assume he’ll be Will Smith’s son for obvious racial reasons, but we doubt that will be the case. That’ll just be too cliché for the film. There is a chance we may once again see Alice Braga return as she’s expressed enthusiasm for a return to the franchise once she learned a sequel would be happening.
“I was super surprised and very curious,” Braga said. “I was almost jumping on the phone and saying, ‘Can I please be in it? Can I please be in it? Can I please be in it?’”
We sure hope so.
What do y’all think of I Am Legend 2 going into production? Let us know in the comments section below.
