It appears Warner Brothers will be rebooting movies not previously considered as franchises, thus now turning them into franchises. This time around, they’ll be rebooting the Will Smith hit from 2007, I Am Legend with another installment, and it looks like they’ll be bringing in some reinforcements.
Warner Brothers announced that they have greenlit a sequel to I Am Legend, with Akiva Goldsman returning to write the script, Smith returning as the star, and Michael B. Jordan will be right alongside him. No director has been linked to the project as of now, but Jordan is producing the film along with Elizabeth Raposo with his company Outlier Society. As of now, there has been no announced release date, but it should be announced in due time.
If it’s not a strange enough choice that they’re making a sequel to the post-apocalyptic zombie film a decade and a half later, bringing Smith on to be in the next one will be quite tough considering his character sacrificed his life to save humanity. Even so, it appears Smith is excited to be involved in the project, as he posted a still from the movie’s original movie on his official Instagram page.
As if bringing Smith back won’t be confusing enough, figuring out where this story will go next is anyone’s guess. Is it going to be about humanity picking itself up again after the zombie apocalypse or has it already repopulated and is about to face the exact same challenge again? A movie like this seems like an odd choice to get a sequel, but given the disastrous pandemic we’ve lived through for the last two years that we are just now getting over, perhaps both the virus itself and the reaction society had to it gave Hollywood some ideas.
If that’s the case, then maybe this upcoming sequel may have something to say after all. The original I Am Legend started off with society dealing with a pandemic that was beyond everyone’s worst nightmare before the human race itself was basically eradicated. Perhaps this movie will delve into how it became that bad through some real-life events that unfolded when the pandemic took place, or it could delve into how humanity prepared itself for when that threat comes again.
Sadly, Hollywood’s obsession with exploiting nostalgia for all it’s worth over the past several years could make viewers skeptical about this film. Again, the details as of now don’t make a whole ton of sense for a sequel to be justified. Even with how commercially successful the first film was, it never seemed like a story that would continue in a sequel. Needless to say, Warner Brothers definitely has its work cut out for them with this project.
Source: Deadline
