Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

I Am Legend 2

2/17/12 - Arash Amel has been hired to write a screenplay for I Am Legend 2 for Warner Bros. Will Smith is on board to produce through his Overbrook Entertainment shingle, with the potential once again to star, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Akiva Goldsman, who co-wrote and produced I Am Legend, also will return as a producer.  The 2007 horror thriller starred Smith as the last surviving human in a New York cityscape overrun by monsters that survived the plague that killed most of humanity. It is unclear how the storyline will be developed in the new project since Smith's character, Robert Neville, perished at the end of the first film. 

1/16/09 – SCI FI Wire reported that Francis Lawrence, who directed 2007's I Am Legend, said he, star Will Smith and writer/producer Akiva Goldsman are awaiting a script, by D.B. Weiss, for the proposed prequel film, which will again explore the idea of what it means to be the last man on Earth.  "That was the real reason I wanted to do the movie in the first place, really, was the idea of 'What does that world look like, what does it do to you when you're by yourself?'" Lawrence said. "What does it do without people, without companionship and sound and the loss of your family, without anybody to talk to? I think that's really what people connected to, and so the tough thing is how do we do that again and in a different way?"  Lawrence added: "Yeah, if we figure out the story, I'm absolutely involved in the prequel. ... We've had conversations. The three of us, Will and Akiva and I, have sat down and talked, and there's a writer that's working on it right now. So we came up with the bones of a story, and now we're waiting to see a script."

12/8/08 - SCI FI Wire reported that Will Smith, who starred as Robert Neville in I Am Legend, said a proposed prequel film will be set in the final days before human life is wiped out in New York.  "It would be the fall of Manhattan, the last American city to fall," Smith said.  The prequel film would feature an ensemble of characters dealing with the viral outbreak consuming the world. "The feeling of it that we've been talking about would be essentially Saving Private Ryan," Smith said.  I Am Legend, based on Richard Matheson's story, was set three years after Smith's Neville became the last human survivor of a viral plague. Neville dies at the end of that film, meaning that any follow-up movie would need to be a prequel, which is what is being envisioned.

9/25/08 - Warner Brothers is developing a prequel to the Will Smith SF movie I Am Legend, with Smith to reprise his role as scientist Robert Neville, Variety reported.  Francis Lawrence will return to direct, and Akiva Goldsman and his Weed Road banner will produce with James Lassiter, Smith's partner in Overbrook Entertainment.  The studio has set D.B. Weiss to write a script that is based on a detailed outline that was hatched over the past few months by Smith, Goldsman, Lassiter and Lawrence.  The prequel will chronicle the final days of humanity in New York before a man-made virus caused a plague that left Smith's character the lone survivor among a mutated mob in the city.

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