Two film icons are coming together with a sequel to a box office hit for the first time. Deadline has reported that I Am Legend is getting a sequel with Will Smith set to return. Joining him this time around will be none other than Michael B. Jordan.
I Am Legend followed The Last Man on Earth (1964) and Omega Man (1971) as the most recent adaptation of the Richard Matheson novel of the same name. Smith stared as Robert Neville, the only human in New York City to survive a deadly outbreak that stems from a drug meant to cure cancer which has turned the rest of the population into vampier-like creatures called the Darkseekers. This will mark the first big film together for Jordan and Smith. No plot details have been released for the sequel as of yet.
Returning along with Smith will be Oscar winner Akiva Goldsman, responsible for adapting the first film from Matheson's 1954 novel. Goldsman is set to write the sequel and produce alongside Elizabeth Raposo and Jordan under the Outlier Society production banner. Smith will produce via his Westbrook Studios with Jon Mone. The original film opened in 2007 and made $585.4 million worldwide and also starred Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, and Sally Richardson-Whitfield.
I Am Legend had an ending that divided audiences, the theatrical cut sees Will Smith's character sacrificing himself and taking several of the creatures with him in an explosion as he provides a distraction for his fellow survivors, Anna and Ethan, to escape along with a sample of his new cure. This ending would not work for the announced sequel with Jordan unless we only see Smith in flashbacks. An alternate ending was filmed that saw Neville learn that the reason the vampires-like creatures are attacking his home is that the creatures' leader is the significant other to the latest "test subject" that Neville had kidnapped in order to try and create a cure. Realizing that Neville lets his test subject rejoin her brethren abandons his research, takes the cure, and heads along with Anna and Ethan to Vermont. Which would make more sense to use in the sequel.
Smith also shared an image of the landscape of the original film to his Instagram not long after the news about the new I Am Legend project was announced, and he tagged Jordan as well.