New plot details have emerged about Warner Bros.’s upcoming sequel to its 2007 hit I Am Legend. According to producer Akiva Goldsman, I Am Legend 2, which was greenlit last year, picks up “a few decades” after the first movie.
However, the film would be slightly different as the production team is taking inspiration from HBO’s The Last of Us. Goldsman revealed these details in a recent interview with Deadline. “I’m obsessed with The Last of Us,” he says, “where we see the world not just after the 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?” Goldsman also added “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.”
What’s more, although Will Smith’s character sacrificed himself in the theatrical ending of I Am Legend, he is set to return alongside Michael B. Jordan for the sequel. This is because, per Goldsman, the sequel will “trace back to the original [Richard] Matheson book” while also exploring the ramifications of its alternate ending, in which Smith’s character, Robert Neville, survives.
While the theatrical ending sees Will Smith’s Robert Neville die, in the alternate ending, he discovered that the alpha male, Darkseeker, was simply trying to recover his mate. This discovery makes him realize that the infected were sentient and that he was a monster in their eyes. leading him to abandon his research in the hope of finding the survivors’ colony.
I Am Legend 2 will further explore this ending according to Goldsman this ending. As he added that “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.
I Am Legend premiered in 2007 and followed Robert Neville, the last man on Earth, as he battled Darkseekers.Infected humans with vampire-like characteristics who rise every night to wreak havoc. Fans and critics alike praised the film and it grossed over $585 million globally.
There is currently no scheduled release date for I Am Legend 2.