It’s no secret that Warner Bros. has had its eye on a follow-up to Will Smith-starring apocalypto-thriller I Am Legend ever since the original film made lots of dosh at the box office. But while a prequel was first mooted back in 2008, with DB Weiss engaged to chronicle the last days of New York, that plan now seems to have evolved into an unspecified follow-up.
Still, the studio has made deals with producer Akiva Goldsman and Smith’s company Overbrook Entertainment to get the gears moving again, and writer Arash Amel has snagged the job of finding some way to explore the story from another angle.
Just what angle that might be is another matter. The teeny tiny sticking point is that, um – SPOILER ALERT! – Smith’s scientist character Robert Neville sacrificed his life at the end of the first film. But as Mr Spock could tell you, there is rarely a true death in science fiction. Plus, we suppose there are other adventures to talk about.
The prequel idea may yet rear its head again, but given that the movie showed the decline of Manhattan (and, by extension, the world) in a succinct fashion, you have to wonder if there’s truly anything left to delve into there. No, we figure they’ll just go ahead and do something like cloning Neville. Oooh… Or he could have somehow survived the kaboom finale of movie to become the villain this time around! The Not So Fresh Prince Of NYC…
Whatever it mutates into, we’re not expecting to see the movie immediately. Smith is busy and is waiting to see what Amel – who has been wowing studios with his Grace Kelly script Grace Of Monaco – can produce before he signs on.