Will Smith’s Fate Will Be Changed In I Am Legend 2
I Am Legend 2 will continue from the alternate ending of the first movie, in which Will Smith's character survived.
If you have watched 2007’s I Am Legend, the remake of a remake of a book adaptation starring Will Smith, you may see the title of this article and say, “Hey, wait a second, didn’t Will Smith die at the end of that movie? How can they make a sequel?” Well, according to The Direct, Akiva Goldman, the film’s producer, wants us to just forget that part for I Am Legend 2.
The first film saw Will Smith play Robert Neville, the last man left alive on an Earth that had been overrun by humans who had been turned into vampire-like creatures after they were infected with a virus. These creatures, known as Darkseekers, eventually overtake Neville in the end, just after he came up with a cure for the virus. He passes off the cure to his fellow survivors (he wasn’t actually the last man alive after all) and blows himself up in the original ending to save them and defeat the Darkseekers.
But that is not the ending that I Am Legend 2 will start from.
The original I Am Legend had an alternate ending, in which Will Smith’s character realizes that the Darkseekers aren’t just blindly hateful creatures: they are coming after him for a reason. He is using one of their own for an experimental cure, and he realizes that these creatures can have thoughts and feelings just like they did when they were humans. This leads to him changing his mind about killing all Darkseekers, and he establishes a sort of truce with the Darkseekers’ leader, who lets him escape and creates the possibility of an I Am Legend 2.
Although many people are not aware that the film has an alternate ending, the ones who have seen it tend to prefer it by a wide margin to the original ending, seeing it as much more philosophical and hopeful. So, with this in mind, it isn’t so shocking that Will Smith and company would come back to film I Am Legend 2 after all.
Starring Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan, I Am Legend 2 will pick up 20 or 30 years after Robert Neville escaped with his comrades. It will be much closer to the ending of the book the first film is based on, which was written by Richard Matheson in 1954.
It will also, apparently, take inspiration from HBO’s The Last of Us, which producer Akiva Goldsman is, in his words, “obsessed with.” He said he was struck by how the show and video game give us a glimpse of the world just after the apocalypse takes place, but also after 20 or 30 more years, during which time nature has taken back the world. With humans no longer at the top of the food chain, other things can grow and adapt and remake the world in a new, oddly peaceful image.
Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan will also be producers on I Am Legend 2, but no release date has been given yet. All we know is, you might need to find a copy of the film with the alternate ending in the meantime so that the sequel will make sense!
