Warner Bros. producer Akiva Goldsmith recently gave some more hints on what to expect from the much-awaited sequel to the 2007 post-apocalyptic thriller I Am Legend. Goldsmith said the Will Smith sequel takes some inspiration from The Last of Us.
I Am Legend, adapted from a 1954 novel by Richard Matheson, starred Smith as a sole survivor of an apocalypse he helped create as a virologist working for the military. When the treatment for cancer morphs into a terrifying virus that kills off humanity and leaves what remains as night-dwelling mutants, Dr. Robert Neville (Smith) fights to find an antidote and survive in the ruins of New York City under attack from horrific creatures and remaining humans.
Deadline reports producer Goldsman is leading the project as part of the return of his Weed Road outfit to Warner Bros., where he will be tackling the I Am Legend sequel along with other projects. Banking on the original film's success and $585 million worldwide gross, I Am Legend 2 will star Smith and Michael B. Jordan. Goldsmith outlined how the sequel will approach the original story. “This will start a few decades later than the first,” he 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.”
Goldsmith described how I Am Legend will connect to the first film by following the original's alternate ending, in which Smith's Neville survived instead of dying. “We trace back to the original Matheson book, and the alternate ending as opposed to the released ending in the original film," Goldsmith said. "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.”
The comparisons to HBO's current hit the Last of Us are promising, given that its version of the post-apocalyptic zombie drama has been drawing in record viewers for the first season, earning vast critical acclaim, and has already been renewed for a second season. I Am Legend's viral mutants, and its last-man-standing storyline, resemble the straggled survivors of The Last of Us, and there is potential to tell rich, human-centered stories among the monsters and wreckage.
I Am Legend 2 is in development at Warner Bros.
Source: Deadline