By Armon Sadler
Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan will star in the highly-anticipated sequel to the 2007 blockbuster film I Am Legend, but the story will be taking a different direction. I Am Legend 2 picks up from where the prequel’s alternate ending finishes off, with protagonist Robert Neville, played by the Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air actor, surviving the onslaught of nocturnal mutants.
“This will start a few decades later than the first,” producer and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman told Deadline in an interview about the upcoming film. “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.”
“We trace back to the original Matheson book, and the alternate ending as opposed to the released ending in the original film,” he continued. “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 2 will follow Neville coming to terms with the fact he has become a monster to those who were infected with the virus. In feeling sympathy for the experiments he made the Darkseekers a part of, he decides to leave his research behind and head to Vermont in search of the survivor’s colony.
I Am Legend was a box office success in 2007, racking up $77.2 million during its opening weekend and outpacing Alvin And The Chipmunks for first place. Overall, the movie grossed $256 million domestically and $329 million internationally.
Will Smith will also be reprising another role in the near future, as the Oscar winner and Martin Lawrence recently confirmed Bad Boys 4 is in the works. “It’s about that time,” the Philadelphia native declared in a Jan. 31 Twitter video with his co-star.