The I Am Legend 2 That Almost Was
These ideas sound legen... oh, you know.
by Jared Larson FEBRUARY 12, 2014
For better or worse, it looks like that rumored
I Am Legend sequel will stay a legend.
On Tuesday,
io9 sat down with director
Akiva Goldsman to talk about his upcoming adaptation of Mark Helprin's 1983 novel, Winter's Tale. In the process, they broached the subject of a follow-up to the highly successful
Will Smith vehicle I Am Legend, a film Goldsman co-wrote and produced back in 2007.
I Am Legend had some harrowing, emotional moments.
"We wrote a prequel [and] a sequel," he explains. "We had a really interesting prequel, which was the first outbreak of the virus, during a Thanksgiving Day parade, which was awesome. We did a really interesting prequel that [took place] later. Which was right after the first... really right when the population of humans became pretty decimated. And it was this sort of trek to Washington. Which included a dark seeker elephant that had broken out of the zoo."
"Dark seeker" refers to the infected creatures Will Smith fought in the movie. While the idea of an infected elephant may seem odd, I Am Legend did establish that animals were just as susceptible to the zombifying disease as humans.
A dark seeker invades Neville's lab.
While the zombie elephant sounds strange, another script for a potential sequel was downright bizarre. Goldsman continues, "Then we did a sequel, that started with Neville (Will Smith) again — and you realized that he was cloned. We've tried every which way. In fact if you're available you could be in the next movie. It will never happen but we really enjoyed trying to make it happen."
He goes on to reiterate, "Oh we tried. There were scripts. We really tried."
Considering how reportedly desperate studios were to make a sequel, the fact that they ultimately decided to drop it probably says something.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/02/13/the-i-am-legend-2-that-almost-was
