Will Smith will reprise his role as post-apocalyptic survivor Dr. Robert Neville in a sequel to 2007’s I Am Legend. The film saw Smith play the sole survivor of an apocalypse that turns humans into seemingly mindless vampire mutants called Darkseekers. Although Smith’s character was killedd off at the end of the movies’s theatrical cut, the actor was confirmed for the sequel back in March 2022.
Black Panther and Creed star Michael B.Jordan is also set to star in and produced the sequel and he’s actually the reason why Smith signed on to return to the role. Smith said that he wasn’t originally interested in coming back for a sequel until hearing Jordan’s idea for the film. “The idea came up. I can’t talk about it yet. But it’s a really, really cool concept, and he was a part of creating the idea,” said Smith. “So it was one of those ones I was gonna leave alone, and then I heard the idea. I was like, ‘That might work. I think we can do that.”
Anyone who’s seen the original film will remember that Smith’s character sacrifices himself so that Anna (Alice Braga) and Ethan (Charlie Tahan) can escape from the Darkseekers. But Goldsman said that the sequel will follow on from the alternate ending to “I Am Legend,” rather than the ending fans saw in theaters.
In the alternate ending, which was included on the movie’s DVD home release, Neville makes peace with the Darkseekers by giving them the female Darkseeker he had been experimenting on in order to find a cure for the mutants. He realizes that he’s become a monster to them, and they are simply trying to defend themselves against him. The final scenes show Neville leaving New York to find other survivors with Anna and Ethan.
As well as following on from the alternate ending, the new movie will be more faithful to the 1954 novel that “I Am Legend” is based on. In author Richard Matheson’s novel of the same name, Neville is actually up against more traditional vampires after a global pandemic has transformed humanity into blood-sucking creatures. And yes, they’re even scared of garlic.
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