“I am a legend” is broadcast tonight on TF1 Séries Films. Will the Francis Lawrence feature film worn by Will Smith have a sequel?
In 2007, Francis Lawrence adapted Richard Matheson’s novel, I Am Legend.
Will Smith played the role of Robert Neville, a scholar mysteriously immune to a virus that is decimating the population and turning them into mutants. Last man living in New York, Neville tries to devote himself entirely to his mission: to overcome the virus, to cancel its terrible effects by using his own blood.
When it was released, the postapocalyptic feature film was a success and grossing $585.4 million worldwide. Warner therefore wants to produce a second part, but the director says that a sequel is not possible.
WARNING, the rest of this article contains spoilers on the film
Indeed, at the end of I’m a legendthe character played by Will Smith dies.
In 2019, Francis Lawrence declares at the microphone of the podcast Happy Sad Confused : “Warner really wanted to do another one, but I couldn’t see what could be done. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that people wanted to see the last man on earth, so they were shown the last man on earth.
But since he dies at the end, we couldn’t do anything else with him. What’s more, I don’t think the viewers are attached to the character as they can be with an Indiana Jones. He’s not the kind of icon that could come back again and again.”
Warner Bros. Will Smith
The director continues: “I thought it was a little winded to do a prequel, it would have been a lot like Contagion. And doing a sequel with Robert Neville wouldn’t have been possible anyway, or you had to do something really stupid, like “scientists recovered his DNA and managed to recreate it.” That would have been completely silly, so I preferred to bow out.”
A sequel starring Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan
Yet last March, before the Oscars ceremony, Michael B. Jordan and Will Smith announce a sequel to I Am Legend.
The two actors should produce and star in the feature film and the studio seems to have found a way around the death of Robert Neville…
Indeed, the ending of the theatrical version of the film was not the ending originally planned. The latter was modified following poor feedback from test screenings.
However, the DVD edition of the feature film by Francis Lawrence restores the original ending, and with it the return of Will Smith is entirely possible.
Alternate ending makes a sequel possible
Instead of throwing himself on the infected with a grenade, Neville understands that they have come to recover the woman on whom he is experimenting. The scientist opens the door and hands it over to his people. The infected then leave the laboratory, leaving Robert alive.
The latter takes the road alongside Anna (Alice Braga) and Ethan (Charlie Tahan) towards Bethel in Vermont.
In this version, Neville has not found the antidote but he remains alive. It is therefore more likely that it is this end, completely open to a sequel, which serves as the starting point for the second part.
It’s still unclear if the Oscar slap case and recent cancellations of projects with Will Smith will impact I Am Legend 2 and if the studio will decide to make that movie without the actor. But a second part to the feature film is very topical.
See the alternate ending of “I Am Legend”