Will Smith says ‘I Am Legend’ sequel will follow on from DVD’s alternate ending: “My character didn’t die”

Will Smith has revealed that the sequel to I Am Legend will adopt an alternative timeline to the original film, following the alternate DVD ending where his character is still alive.

In the original film, released in 2007, Smith plays the last survivor of an apocalypse caused by a virus. His character Robert Neville, a scientist, uses his immunity to the virus to work on a cure, while fighting vampiric mutants who attack him at night. He meets fellow survivors Anna and her son Ethan, who are travelling to a survivor’s camp.

In the theatrical ending, Neville sacrifices himself to save Anna and Ethan from the mutants, allowing them to flee to safety. In an alternative ending shared on the DVD, however, the emphasis of the final act changes when Neville realises the mutants are sentient, and his experiments on them looking for a cure have made him a monster from their perspective.

Abandoning his work, he leaves with Anna and Ethan looking for a survivor’s camp. This ending, while faithful to the novel the movie was based on, did not go over well with test audiences, prompting the studio to change it. However, the alternative ending is seen by many to be the superior version.

A sequel to the film was announced in 2022, with Smith and Michael B. Jordan announced to star. While there was some confusion as to what that meant for his character, Smith appeared on REVOLT‘s Drink Champs podcast to explain the context of the film.

“What we were gonna do was the prequel, so we were gonna do the prequel. … And (writer Akiva Goldsman) was like, but wait, what if we make a new version from the alternate ending, where your character is still alive and you know, Michael B. Jordan’s character currently is the head of a new settlement… He’s not my son… So there’s a settlement in Connecticut,” Smith said.

Currently, there is no release date set for I Am Legend 2. Recently, the Oscar winner discussed the advice Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar gave him before his return to music.

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