I Am Legend 2 Reveals Alternate Cut Is Now Canon
There’s been a lot going on with the production of I Am Legend 2 since it was first announced to be happening back in March 2022. Two years later and, thanks to word from the movie’s writer and producer, Akiva Goldsman, things are moving along swimmingly, with the scribe telling the crowd at Collider’s Producers on Producing panel at SDCC, “There will be some good news shortly.” What’s even better for many of the diehard fans out there is that the original movie won’t be receiving the follow-up but instead, the next chapter will pick up following the alternative ending in which Will Smith’s Neville survives.
Neville Lives
In short, this means that book readers around the world will be cheering today as the film changed the ending that was initially penned by Richard Matheson in his beloved 1954 novel of the same name.
Instead of Will Smith’s character, Neville, dying to sacrifice himself for the betterment of humanity, which is how things played out in the 2007 Francis Lawrence film, the alternate ending sees him alive and well. It’s with this that Goldsman says the creative team will pick up the script for I Am Legend 2.
There Were Already Hints
“We’re sequelizing the alternative cut,” Goldsman explained to the audience, “Where Will lives and things don’t go well for humanity.”
We already had an inkling that the follow-up feature would ditch the original movie’s ending and pick up where Matheson intended for things to leave off as Will Smith had already added his name to the call sheet alongside Michael B. Jordan.
While he could have made an appearance in a cameo or flashback capacity, re-routing to the alternative ending makes much more sense.
Smith And Jordan Are Producing
Along with starring, both Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan will also serve as producers via their Westbrook and Outlier Society studios, respectively. Warner Bros. remains the major studio attached to I Am Legend 2. As of right now, no director has been named nor has the rumor mill been churning with possible names.
Not Your Daddy’s I Am Legend
Right now, it’s unclear where the plot of I Am Legend 2 will go, but we could see Smith’s character grappling with the guilt of his survival as well as his experiments on the Darkseekers.
The alternative cut sees Neville come to a place of complex and emotional understanding, realizing that – from the perspective of the infected – he’s a boogeyman who has been carrying them off to his lab.
And, as for the fate of the rest of the world in I Am Legend 2, Goldsman said that audiences can expect a comeback that “is kind of spectacular,” adding that it’s in no way “your father’s I Am Legend.” The writer also confirmed that the script was in its second draft.
The Original
I Am Legend was one of Warner Bros.’s biggest money makers of 2007 as it earned a staggering $585.4 million at the global box office against its $150 million production budget. It’s rather shocking that a sequel is just coming down the pipeline now more than a decade since the original film was released.
With all the hype surrounding the combination of Michael B. Jordan and Will Smith performing opposite one another in the post-apocalyptic project and the gargantuan financial gains the first movie made, we’d surmise that the studio has bumped up the production budget quite a bit for I Am Legend 2.
Source: Deadline
