Warner Bros. really, really wanted to make a
franchise out of the Will Smith -starrer I Am
Legend. And they tried really, really hard to make
a sequel or prequel, to no avail. Smith just didn’t
seem interested.
But now they’ve found another way to revive the
property without involving Smith. I Am Legend
will come back as a reboot, based on a script
that originally had nothing to do with I Am
Legend. Hit the jump for more on the I Am
Legend reboot.
The new version of I Am Legend started with
Warner Bros.’ acquisition of a spec script called A
Garden at the End of the World , by Apple Store
salesman Gary Graham. The project was initially
described as “a sci-fi version of John Wayne’s
The Searchers,” according to Deadline .
But after the studio spoke with I Am Legend
producers, they saw thematic similarities between
A Garden at the End of the World and I Am
Legend. When Graham came in for rewrites, they
asked him to turn it into an I Am Legend reboot.
Retrofitting an original script for an existing
property is not uncommon. Die Hard With a
Vengeance, Ocean’s Twelve , and Jack Ryan:
Shadow Recruit were all adapted from original
screenplays. There was a whole This American
Life segment about the time someone did that to
make Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights .
Original I Am Legend producers Akiva Goldsman ,
James Lassiter, and Joby Harold are producing,
along with Roy Lee and Brooklyn Weaver . No
director or star is signed on yet. Smith, who’s
said he doesn’t want to be the sequel guy, has
shown a reluctance to return for another I Am
Legend.
Warner Bros. did try to make it work, exploring
ideas for both a prequel and a sequel. ( According
to Goldsman, the former would have been set
pre-apocalypse, while the latter might have
involved a clone.) Now the reboot makes him
irrelevant, freeing him up to make Bad Boys 3 or
whatever else instead.
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