After taking $333 million worldwide in just three weeks, a sequel to the Will Smith action vehicle I AM LEGEND is 100% inevitable. The apocalyptic blockbuster made Warner Brothers far too money for them to close the book on this world and with the audience feedback being rather positive, I would expect work to soon begin on a sequel.
An insider who wishes to remain anonymous has told Shock Till You Drop that the studio has reached a deal with the book’s author Richard Matheson, allowing WB to come up with an original story for any future installments. Matheson never wrote a sequel to I AM LEGEND (for obvious reasons) and all the previous incarnations and adaptations have all been stand-alone.
The problem for WB is how do they make a sequel without their A-list star Will Smith, generally a figure who is perceived to have attracted the majority of the huge audience.
Well without some major screwed up plot device, Will Smith’s Robert Neville surely won’t be back for the sequel and the obvious avenue to go down would be to follow the small group of survivors, possibly going the DAWN OF THE DEAD route with an enclosed environment.
Of course, the question then is would we be interested in a Will Smith-less sequel? It’s going to be interesting to see how they pull this off, but sooner or later there will be an I AM LEGEND 2.
2 Comments
I really hope they don’t go through with a sequel. There’s no room for a sequel. At least not a sequel that would have a meaningful story. They could always pull out the creature/zombie angle and make a million sequels to it, but none would come close to the compelling story of this one.
Look how they destroyed “28 days Later” with 28 weeks later, If it isn’t broke don’t fix it? Most sequels fail because the story line is altered to the ZOMBIE KILLING roll, Like Resident Evil or the Dawn of the Dead Sequels although the 2004 Movie was a pretty good remake and not so much a sequel. The only way this movie will be successful is if Robert Neville “Will Smiths” character is included – maybe a prequel like when it just happen, remember the flashbacks Heston’s character had in the Omega Man, when the chopper went down and he needed to take the anti virus shot, maybe say start it from the beginning and then 3 years after? Keep the same director “Constantine” to direct it remember Danny B. from 28 days later didn’t director the sequel – keep the attention to detail intact “Nature claims New York City”- if not, it will almost guarantee to “SUCK”. This movie was remade twice from the original Vincent Price movie, “The last man on earth” then with Charleston Heston in “The Omega Man” which is dated but I believe still a good movie for it’s time 70s. One of the Best Sequels ever made, “ALIENS” Which one an Oscar for effects and One of the best horror Remakes ever made John Carpenter’s The Thing” I would like to see a future remake of “Bladerunner”
and Harrison Ford to continue the role as Decker. Best SCFI Film of all time. Hell if he can return as Indy, he sure can return as decker!