‘I Am Legend 2’ with Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan will have an alternate ending, according to filmmaker Elise Brisco.
Will Smith’s 2007 film “I Am Legend” is getting a sequel with Michael B. Jordan joining the apocalyptic fight – and filmmaker Akiva Goldsman is spilling the beans.
In an interview published Wednesday by Deadline, Goldsman refused to reveal Jordan’s role in the film, but teased that the sequel will more closely follow the path of the book by Richard Matheson, on which the original film is based.
“I Am Legend” was one of the year’s highest-grossing films, grossing nearly $77 million in its opening weekend.
Here’s everything you need to know about the blockbuster film and its planned sequel.
Will Smith perished in ‘I Am Legend?’
The original film is about a plague that wipes out humanity and turns the survivors into zombies. Smith’s character, Dr. Robert Neville, appears to be the only man alive and desperately seeks a cure.
‘I Am Legend 2’ will have a different ending.
However, the sequel will follow the alternate ending that was not shown in theatres.
Though Smith’s character dies at the end of “I Am Legend,” filmmakers gave viewers an alternate ending that is somewhat happier and is available on DVD and some streaming services.
In the alternate ending, the zombies leave Smith’s Neville alone after he returns the body on which he was testing the cure to them. Smith, Anna, and her son travel to Vermont to spread the word about the cure.
According to Goldsman, the sequel will begin “a few decades” after the first film and will focus on the alternate ending.
“I’m obsessed with ‘The Last of Us,’ in which we see the world not only after the apocalypse but also after a 20-30-year lapse,” Goldsman said. “You see how the earth reclaims the world, and there’s something beautiful in the question of what happens when man steps back from being the primary tenant.”
He went on to say: “We can trace our roots back to the original Matheson novel and the alternate ending to the original film. Matheson was referring to the fact that man’s time as the dominant species on the planet had come to an end. That will be a fascinating topic for us to investigate. There will be more adherence to the original text.”