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EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros has closed deals with Akiva Goldsman and Overbrook Entertainment to produce another installment of I Am Legend, the 2007 hit film. The intention is for Will Smith to reprise his role as scientist Robert Neville, who was the last man on Earth doing battle with a mutated mob in New York City after an apocalyptic man-made virus wiped out the population. A deal was made with Arash Amel to write the script. The film is not being called a prequel, which had been rumored for the past few years. But clearly Warner Bros sees more room to roam on a film that grossed $584 million worldwide. The original film is based on the novel by Richard Matheson.
Smith won’t commit until the script is ready and I haven’t heard yet where I Am Legend director Francis Lawrence stands on the whole thing. The other quandary is this: If it isn’t a prequel, how to get past Smith’s character’s demise at the first film’s end? These of course are semantics in the tentpole game. Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures are casting a continuation of 300, another hit film where all the major characters croaked. Amel is a hot scribe; his script Grace Of Monaco, the film about Grace Kelly that will be directed by La Vie En Rose‘s Olivier Dahan with Pierre-Ange Le Pogam producing and financing, has all the young actresses salivating. Buyers are also waiting to pounce. CAA made the deals.
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Oooooh, I was waiting with baited breath for the next prequel/sequel/remake/reboot/reimagining announcement!
Will Smith’s character only met his demise in the theatrical version of the film. In the ‘alternative ending’ version seen in video releases – he survives.
And what is your point? That ending doesn’t count. The movie that everyone saw he “died.” So how do they get around that and the fake ending on video you are referring to that doesn’t matter?
Yeah, but…the alternate ending is just that…ALTERNATE. It would be pretty cheesy for WB to say, ‘Oh, that ending you paid to see in theaters and on DVD…that’s not REALLY what happened!’
The Alt ending is stupid. It should be a prequel. Robert nevelle should stay dead. The original and actual ending to the story is way better. The alternate ending contradicts with the story and the virus backround.
Aren’t the first 5 minutes of “I Am Legend” the ‘prequel’?
Who wants a prequel establishing how the virus got out? Why would anyone care? Frankly I’d much rather see a sequel even though WB basically painted themselves into a corner using the inferior ending they did.
As far as the ending goes, I totally disagree the alternate ending was “stupid”. The alternate ending WAS much better. It gave a motivation to the silly zombie characters that was totally absent in the theatrical version. If they want, Warners can repackage/reissue the film using that alternate ending intact as a promotion for the film.
As it is, I AM LEGEND was half a great movie and half an awful one. A very frustrating viewing experience because when it worked, it worked brilliantly.
True, and Neville dying fits the entire concept of the movie way beter… I Am Legend, I recall him saying: “this is my legacy” somewhere near the end. It’s more symbolical or whatever word I am looking for.
Look, I hate to be that guy going “The original story was better!” but… Well, the original story was better. The protagonist is in fact the only man left alive (that always bugged me in the movie that there was this whole other colony out there somewhere, it takes away from his loneliness) and in the end he discovers that the creatures he’s hunting (vampires in the short story, not zombies) are actually quite intelligent and for the most part want nothing more than to live in peace, and actually see the protagonist as the monster. I believe the alternate ending made some use of that.
I didn’t see the alternate ending but I did read the book and I agree with you. Man his loneliness was hardcore. And the zombies weren’t such monsters finally. They had once been human, anyway. And it was interesting how the zombie thing felt like another form of evolution, like the end of the Neanderthal.
Remember this is Hollywood, they think they can write better than all the authors and literary icons since time began. Never mind that they fail far more than they succeed.
what if, he DOES stay dead?
They should have gone with the alternate ending in the first damned place. It was much truer to the spirit of the book (even though Neville lived) and actually gave the movie a freakin’ theme it was otherwise lacking (and made sense of the title). AND it would have left Willie alive for a sequel, sparing us whatever convoluted BS they come up with to resurrect him this time.
I agree with the alternate ending. It felt alot better to me than his “Heroic Last Stand” and I think the title “I AM legend” fits more with him being alive, as it didnt say “I Was Legend.”
Take it how you want, I think the second should reprise him as the same characther, and just continue off the alternate ending.
No thank you. The first was bad enough
Smith’s character survives in the alternative Blu-ray/DVD version of the film. That’s how this can be a sequel.
What 90% of people saw was Will Smith blowing himself up with a grenade at the end.
F**k your alternative ending! Just like a studio exec to say “Well there was an alternate ending on the the BluRay so…”
F**king a$$clowns.
Great way to make a buck…It better be a great script or else we will for sure give up on hollywood…
no we wont we will just slander them and call them idiots thinking we can do a better job like all movie fans do.
Here’s a clue: the working title is “I Am Robot”…..
This is the happiest day in Ben Lyons life.
Hilarious!
Ooooh…please be a ‘found footage’ film! Those are just…fantastic.
Nevil died at the end of I am Legend, So what is he going to be a zombie now?
those who are mentioning that he survives in the alternate bluray cut, so thats why its possible for him to return for a “SEQUEL” I point you over to the Halloween II remake where Rob Zombie did that same crap of well i had him survive in the directors cut, when he brought back Dr Loomis in H2, even though he is clearly dead at the first RZ Halloween.
Huge difference between a horror film (and it wasn’t clear that Loomis died in the first) with seemingly immortal Michael Myers as the main character and a gigantic blockbuster that has Will Smith die at the end. Don’t know that Zombie ever used the alternate ending to justify his choice, but those movies are awful and not good precedent for WB to follow.
is Spider-Man in it?
All well and good that he survived in an alternate ending only seen on blu-ray/dvd, but the film as presented to the public has him dying at the end, same as the book. You gotta love Hollywood, though. If there’s money in it, they’ll find a way.
Alternate ending or no, in the movie most people saw he blew up in the end.
Maybe his character is going to be like David Alan Grier in the Head Detective: Big Willie’s head is tasked with rolling around New York in search of his torso and limbs, which were blown out to the five burroughs and are now guarded by packs of ravenous zombies.
Come now, he was only in a massive explosion in a small, closed in room. It’s entirely likely that he lay there grievously wounded for several weeks with no food and no water then was able to drag his horribly burned and mutilated body across a zombie/vampire/whatever they were infested city to a burn ward, where he was able to nurse himself back to fightin’ health and perform complex skin grafts from the 15% of his body that wasn’t horribly burned with no assistance and again no food and water over span over several months and now has nothing to show for it but a single bad-ass scar.
The first film isn’t that good. Half a bilion or not. I rewatched it not long ago and even the last five years haven’t been that good to it. Some films don’t need more installments.
Oh, and stop yakking about the alternate ending folks. I didn’t realise endings that were never used in the ACTUAL cut of the film now counted as get out clauses.
It would most likely be a prequel or something set earlier in Neville’s period of isolation.
The dog is dead.
The dog was great. Bring him back instead. Remake all of the old WB Rin-Tin-Tin movies. Black and white and silent like “The Artist”. Shit, I should be the head of a studio.
Leave well enough alone. The first film was good. The second is bound to be exploitative and terrible. Honestly. We all KNOW that.
So now alternate endings allow sequels to be made? Ok, I guess now multiple endings can be shot and then countless sequels can be made from the different endings.It would be like those special sitcom episodes with the characters on different realities like what friends used to do……………please stop.
They already announced this long ago it’s a prequel titled I Will Be Legend.
Badly wounded Nevillle has to feed on the remains of the infected in order to survive. He does – but at a price. Barely keeping the infection in check, he struggles for mankind’s survival – or might he be mankind’s downfall himself?
But it never showed him actually dying. Who knows
I wouldn’t be surprised if they went cheesy and cloned him from his blood sample. Oh well, time will tell.
If he survived in the alternate ending on DVD….then make the sequel direct to DVD! He did not survive in the theater version.
Movies and books change endings for sequels all the time! Gandalf Dies in the first book (movie) and if Peter Jackson doesn’t make money for the Fellowship, new comers to the trilogy have no clue Gandalf is still alive. This is no different. You see Will run out with a grenade and you see an explosion and then cut to other scene… In movie time, he has time to go to Jack in the Box and get a burger before the grenade blows up!
In any case, this will be interesting!
“I will be legend” Lol!! I can’t imagine a more ridiculous title. However, I enjoyed this film. I’m excited to see the character again.
Matheson’s book I Am Legend is *nothing like* the plot of the movie. In the book the virus-caused change in mankind takes hold, the main character figures it out, but in the end the virus-mutant version of mankind prevails. (The movie was much more upbeat than the book. It left some hope.) The phrase “I Am Legend” in the book refers to the guy’s realization that he is the last of his kind, an object of hate to the mutated people around him. This is just before he offs himself.
As to the coming sequel in which the guy lives instead of dying, it’s what movie makers do because they can. Think about Star Wars. Luke’s sister talks to him about their mother, who she says visited her when she was very young. In the later-produced “prequel” (ha ha) she dies right after her twins are born. What you can do in a movie script is warp facts in any direction you like. And if the result is entertaining enough, people won’t care that the character has previously died.