WB eyeing I AM LEGEND sequel

After taking $333 million worldwide in just three weeks, a sequel to the Will Smith action vehicle I AM LEGEND is 100% inevitable. The apocalyptic blockbuster made Warner Brothers far too money for them to close the book on this world and with the audience feedback being rather positive, I would expect work to soon begin on a sequel. An insider who wishes to remain anonymous has told Shock Till You Drop that the studio has reached a deal with the book's author Richard Matheson, allowing WB to come up with an original story for any future installments. Matheson never wrote a sequel to I AM LEGEND (for obvious reasons) and all the previous incarnations and adaptations have all been stand-alone.

The problem for WB is how do they make a sequel without their A-list star Will Smith, generally a figure who is perceived to have attracted the majority of the huge audience. Well without some major screwed up plot device, Will Smith's Robert Neville surely won't be back for the sequel and the obvious avenue to go down would be to follow the small group of survivors, possibly going the DAWN OF THE DEAD route with an enclosed environment. Of course, the question then is would we be interested in a Will Smith-less sequel? It's going to be interesting to see how they pull this off, but sooner or later there will be an I AM LEGEND 2.