I Am Legend 2 With Will Smith And Michael B. Jordan Coming Sooner Than Expected
I Am Legend 2 will start production soon with Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan in the leads
After years of being left in development limbo and a major controversy at the Oscars, it looks like Will Smith is finally making the long-awaited sequel to his 2007 film I Am Legend. While little is known about the upcoming sequel at this time, Screen Rant is reporting that the film is in active development, with Akiva Goldsman returning to write the second installment. It will be set decades after the original, starring Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan. According to Goldsman, I Am Legend 2 will more closely adapt the original 1954 novel written by Richard Matheson.
As speculated by many fans online when the news of the sequel first struck, the film will be partially inspired by The Last Of Us. With the Pedro Pascal-led HBO original drawing huge streaming numbers, it was only a matter of time before new content within the zombie niche began to shine through. The studio is currently on the hunt for a director to helm I Am Legend 2, with no word at this time regarding whether or not Francis Lawrence plans to return.
I Am Legend 2 is set to pick up decades after the 2007 film, with Will Smith reprising his role as Dr. Robert Neville, years after a virus has caused most of humanity to die off or be converted into night-walking zombie creatures. This news was shocking to many fans, seeing as how the original film concludes with Neville sacrificing himself to save a potential cure for the virus. While the second film doesn’t plan to reanimate Dr. Neville’s corpse, it does follow a popular theory in the online discourse regarding the ongoing possibility of a sequel.
An alternate ending was shot which saw Robert Neville reconciling the fact that the creatures he believed to be unthinking unfeeling zombies were in fact, intelligent sentient creatures. In the alternate cut, which I Am Legend 2 is now confirmed to follow, Neville reaches an amicable truce with the creatures based on mutual respect. Goldsman notes that this ending better represents the themes presented in the novel, which seeks to ask the reader what the world would look like if humanity were to cease being the apex creature on earth.
Test audiences inexplicably hated the ending, prompting the studio to close the film with Robert Neville’s noble sacrifice to the death instead, a move which many fans consider one of the worst cases of studio interference in recent memory. At this time, there is no word on how Michael B. Jordan fits into the narrative of I Am Legend 2, but the Creed actor was apparently instrumental in getting Will Smith to sign on for the film.
After many years of shutting down rumors of a sequel, Will Smith stated that Michael B. Jordan’s story idea was strong enough to bring him back to the project. This news arrives after a host of Smith’s projects were canceled following the infamous slapping incident during the Oscars, in which Smith physically assaulted comedian Chris Rock on stage.
With I Am Legend 2 serving as one of the only Will Smith projects still under active development, many fans are hoping the film will serve as the first in a series of career comebacks for the beloved actor.
