Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan Starring in ‘I Am Legend’ Sequel
Akiva Goldsman is writing the new movie, but no director is attached yet.
Will Smith in 2007's 'I Am Legend.'
Even though there had been talk of follow-up movies in the past, we’re not sure we would have predicted today as the date that a sequel to 2007 post-apocalyptic thriller ‘I am Legend’ would be announced.
And yet, here we are, with word from Deadline that original lead Will Smith will return and Michael B. Jordan will also star.
‘I am Legend’, in case it has slipped into the cloudy recesses of your memory, saw writers Akiva Goldsman and Mark Protosevich adapting Richard Matheson’s much-praised 1954 novel, which posited a world where a devastating virus (far-fetched, we know) had wiped out almost all of humanity and turned the rest into vampire-like mutants who roam the world looking for victims.
Robert Neville, the focus of the story, goes on a mission to find the scientific basis for the pandemic that caused all this, and chronicles his increasingly stressed encounters with his fellow former humans.
The book was adapted several times into movies, including 1964’s ‘The Last Man on Earth’, 1971’s ‘The Omega Man’ and then the 2007 movie.
In that adaptation, directed by ‘Constantine’s Francis Lawrence, Smith plays Neville, who is an army virologist surviving in a ruined New York and looking to find a cure for the virus that caused all the trouble – which was originally a mutated measles strain intended to cure cancer. His wife and daughter died in a helicopter crash as they attempted to flee a quarantine of Manhattan and Neville has company in the shape of his German Shepherd dog Sam.
Will Smith in 2007's 'I Am Legend.'
And so as to avoid spoilers for the film (even if it is 14 years old now), we’ll just say that things don’t go so well for Neville.
Which poses something of a quandary that the new movie would have to address – how does Smith fit into the storyline here? While the movie suggests that Neville’s heroic actions have given new meaning to the title, there’s a chance we’ll see him in flashback to fill in other details of his life before the pandemic and before he confronts his foes.
As for who Jordan might play? He’s not the right fit to be a younger Smith, so perhaps the story will be told from the perspective of a later survivor as the world struggles to get back to normal? What if he was a mutant who was ultimately cured, but must wrangle with what he did in the past?
However it works out, that’s an issue for Goldsman to solve, as he’s back to write the sequel. No director is attached yet.
And Smith posted a teasing image about the project to his Instagram page…
Smith is currently enjoying plenty of Oscar buzz and award wins for his role in ‘King Richard’ and will next be seen in Antoine Fuqua’s ‘Emancipation’. Jordan, meanwhile, is making his directorial debut while also staying in the lead role for ‘Creed III’.
Given that the ‘I Am Legend’ sequel is still at a relatively early stage, there’s no sign of when it might hit theaters.
