I Am Legend 2, starring Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan, will take place several decades after the original 2007 post-apocalyptic action thriller.
In conversation with Deadline, producer and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman shared new details about the I Am Legend sequel, revealing that the film will feature a significant time jump, with the alternate ending to the first movie being treated as canon in the sequel.
"This will start a few decades later than the first," Goldsman said. "I'm obsessed with The Last of Us, where we see the world just post-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? 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."
The sequel is expected to lean further into the Richard Matheson novel that the original was based on, using the 2007 film's alternate ending as a launching point. In that ending, Smith's character survives after managing to fend off a final attack from the infected.
"We trace back to the original Matheson book, and the alternate ending as opposed to the released ending in the original film," Goldsman explained. "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 grossed a whopping $585 million worldwide when it was released in 2007. Its sequel and the upcoming Constantine sequel are top priorities for Warner Bros. as the studio re-teams with Goldsman's production company Weed Road in a multi-year first look deal.
Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.
source https://www.ign.com/articles/i-am-legend-sequel-takes-place-several-decades-after-first-movie