Will Smith confirms that the I Am Legend sequel is using the non-canonical DVD ending
Remember I Am Legend? The sequel is hoping you don't
Aux News I Am Legend
When news came out last year that Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan were working on a sequel to Smith’s 2007 movie I Am Legend, pedantic movie nerds (like us, okay?) pointed out that Will Smith’s character died in the original movie—one of the main things that generally prevents a character from appearing in a sequel. However, as we pedantically noted at the time, the I Am Legend DVD contained an alternate ending that was a little more faithful to Richard Matheson’s original book, where Smith’s character lived and had to endure the realization that he had become a monster in the eyes of the vampire-zombies that had taken over Manhattan.
As it turns out, we didn’t need to worry about it being so complex: Speaking at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia this weekend (via Variety), Smith confirmed that I Am Legend 2 is doing the sensible thing and just using the ending that makes more sense. He says you have be a “real I Am Legend buff” to know about the alternate ending (that’s all of us now, because you read the first paragraph!), but he says “we are going with the mythology of the DVD version.” He also says they just got a script in and that Michael B. Jordan is in it, but he declined to say anything else.
And, really, if you ask the average person who saw I Am Legend in 2007, would they even remember the original ending? Or would they just accept it if you told them that he lived? Hollywood already constantly does that thing where you make a legacy sequel that ignores all of the other sequels, so what difference does it make if you just decide that a movie ended differently in order to justify the existence of a follow-up?
95 Comments
Wow, a sequel that ignores the original ending? Let me get my smelling salts so I don’t faint!
Titanic 2: Back From the Deep
I’ll never watch anything with Will Smith ever again. That’s how stupid the slap was. I won’t get over the slap. Please stop trying to push Will Smith. The slap is irredeemable.
Did he slap YOU?
No, but he made a goddamned idiot of himself across the entire globe, and sometimes it’s hard to set that kind of thing aside when you’re trying to get lost in a movie character. On the other hand, wholeheartedly embracing goddamned idiocy seems to be the thing these days. I suppose your mileage could vary.
yeah i think sometimes people forget that ‘that guy’s lame now’ is as good as reason as any to not watch a movie starring someone.
I think he was always lame though, right?
Chris Rock’s burner account?
Wow. Way to make something that has nothing whatsoever to do with you into something about you.Piss off.
Chris??
Old news.
I’ll
never watch anything with Will Smith ever again. That’s how stupid After Earth was. I won’t get over After Earth. Please stop trying to push Will
Smith. After Earth is irredeemable.
I’m old school — his travesty of Wild Wild West (1999) put me off him as I was a fan of the 1960s show which I used to watch reruns of it after school in the 1980s.
I don’t know. I seem to remember the movie had a scene in which Salma Hayek was wearing those old-timey long johns with the buttflap, and it was partially open and showing her butt. I’ll forgive a lot of bad movie (and it definitely was that), for a little bit of that.
This is the correct take.
Now this I can get aboard with! Where are you so I can you give you a high five to the face! 🙂
I thought that just meant he entered the slang meta zeitgeist. Will Smith SLAPS!
lol
Even his music doesn’t slap anymore.
Until he slaps me personally I will see Will Smith films that interest me.You see, I can separate the artist from the art. If I couldn’t, there would be very little art that I could actually enjoy on its own merits.
But would you watch a reboot of “G.I. Jane” post-slap? That’s the real question.
Okay… thanks for all that.
I generally don’t have a problem separating artist from art, but then I haven’t actually witnessed their bad behavior live on television. Every time I see Smith that’s now the first thing that jumps to mind.
That’s interesting because I’m only going to watch this movie BECAUSE of the slap.
It’s not just about wether he lives or not, it completly changes the premise for a sequel. Who the hero and who the villain is…
michael b jordan is really lucky creed 3 hit because i have no idea what’s happening with his career.
I finally watched that recently and was completely underwhelmed. Cool story, I know.
Wrecking his Ferrari https://jalopnik.com/michael-b-jordan-tears-apart-his-ferrari-in-crash-with-1851070568
I Am Legend DVD contained an alternate ending that was a little more faithful to Richard Matheson’s original book, where Smith’s character lived and had to endure the realization that he had become a monster in the eyes of the vampire-zombies that had taken over Manhattan.Not really that much more faithful to the book, because in the book the protagonist kills himself because he knows the vampires are going to kill him in the most painful way possible. I love the original book, and it doesn’t end well for the narrator/protagonist. Considering from the viewpoint of the vampires he’s a mass murdering, serial killer his death makes sense.
NERD RAAAAAGGEEEEEEI’ve never seen the alternative ending of this garbage movie but if that’s what it is then it’s not “a little more faithful”, it’s the ending that actually addresses the whole fucking point of the novella. OH, YOURE GOING TO MAKE CANON THE ONLY FUCKING THING ABOUT THIS MOVIE THAT MIGHT HAVE MADE IT UNIQUE AND INTERESTING? YOU DON’T SAY!!!!
FFS, the original novela is outstanding and still relevant ( in the context of horror films).
I think “The Last Man on Earth” (1964) got it mostly right (although Richardson Matheson had at best mixed feelings about it).
I just saw my typo. Obviously I was referring to author Mathe Richardson.
I remember the original being decently melancholy and kind of strange – Castaway with zombies! – until that garbage final scene. The zombies looked like cartoons that had been hastily sketched in. Even in 2007 the CGI was so bad.
I thought the zombies (not vampires like in The Last Man on Earth and The Omega Man) looked like Ted Danson.
It’s even the conclusion that the movie itself is clearly leading up to, from the opening scene that analogizes Will Smith’s character to the genetically engineered “cure for cancer” that brings about the zombie apocalypse, to the repeated scenes where his character is shown to be in deep denial about the zombies’ capacity for higher reasoning. Keeping all that setup and then plopping in the inane “Will Smith sacrifices himself to save the good humans from the mindless zombies” ending is basically that old Simpsons gag where Grampa’s retirement home redubs the end of Gone with the Wind so Rhett Butler tells Scarlett, “Frankly my dear . . . I love you, let’s remarry!”
It always aggravated me that someone as supposedly intelligent as his character didn’t recognize that the “zombies” hadn’t lost all capacity for reasoning (his words) – they were trying to rescue their loved one. The guy who ended up breaking through the plexiglass in Smith’s lab tried to follow him out into the sunlight in pursuit of the woman he captured.
The 1964 Italian version with Vincent Price was actually the most faithful to the book, probably because Richard Matheson actually helped with the script.Price’s character dies, but we still get the vampires’ point of view when one of the vampires tells a little kid that now they’re all safe.
BTW—Here’s a pretty good comparison of the book and the three movie adaptations. I agree with the conclusions.https://puzzledpagan.com/2017/10/29/i-am-legend-vs-the-last-man-on-earth-vs-omega-man-vs-i-am-legend/
I love “I Am Legend” the novella. It’s on my list of top ten things I’ve read that made me who I am. And when the movie was in production, I was excited. I generally like Will Smith, and I liked him enough in Ali to believe he could do it.And then someone spoiled the theatrical ending and I have never watched it. I refuse. I reread the book and forget that the movie exists.
To add, in addition to the ending, they could have just put in the movie what made the book great. Rather than entirely rewriting it into a terrible movie.
It’s not unique to kill of the mc, but it’s somewhat our if the ordinary. But no, for goodness sake, do not risk doing even *that*, something out of the ordinary! Because of stupid test audiences, who cares about them, they obviously didn’t even get the title of the film! Back then on the way home people could at least talk for 5 minutes about the title etc.. They didn’t even want that, just something people would forget 5 minutes after The End. The way it went it was just another generic zombie movie, haven’t most people forgot it? I, Robot with zombies, Smiths usual risk taking
I Am Legend 2: The Legend of I Am Legend
I Am Legend 3: the Legend of I Am Curly’s Gold
I Am Leg End: Smells Like A Foot.
lol fuck
2 Legend 2 Furious
Surely “the Legending” should be worked in there somehow.
They’ve been talking up a sequel based on the alternative ending for about a decade now. Unlike a lot of DVD versions the alternate cut has been on TV and Streaming, perhaps for this reason. Not saying it’s a good idea mind you.
Why can’t they just give us a documentary-style World War Z that’s faithful to the original book?
…. We are talking about I am Legend. World War Z is an entirely different, unrelated, book and movie. Are you lost? The person you are replying to wasnt even talking about WWZ so why are you asking them?
Because whenever WWZ is not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, “where’s WWZ?”
I’m willing to be threadjacked on that subject. WWZ was a fantastic read with great insights into how different countries and cultures would respond to a zombie apocalypse, and the movie jettisoned everything interesting about it! DISAPPOINTED!
The biggest and most criminal waste of source material EVER. Give us grainy found footage of the crowd of survivors singing “Avalon.” NOW. Fuck, it would be such a killer miniseries, resembling an anthology, with the narrator as the only constant. FUCK!
“Why can’t they just give us a documentary-style World War Z that’s faithful to the original book?”
Because it would be fucking terrible. The book is PEOPLE DESCRIBING A WORLD OF ZOMBIES. Why would a talking head documentary be IN ANY WAY interesting?
Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi ArabiaI have so many questions, but I suspect the answers would range from depressing to enraging, so I’ll keep them to myself.
You don’t think Will has a chance at winning the prestigious Golden Hacksaw Award?
Human rights are for countries that don’t keep American interests front and center.
Well, he can’t go to the Oscars for the next 10 years, so he’s got to go to whatever film festivals and awards shows that’ll take him.
I Still Know That I Am Legend
I Still Know That I Am Legend 2: I Will Always Know That You Know That You Am Legending
So… the dog is ok too right? ….right?!
Not according to the screaming Norwegian at the beginning.
Sam Is Legend. This will be an animated spin-off where a very much alive Sam the dog realizes that to the many feral cats of Midtown, he is in fact the bad dog. Voiced by Sam Rockwell. Feral King to be assayed by Joe Pantoliano.
Caffeine Spider confirms he has no idea what Will Smith is babbling about.
Instead, for giggles watch Charlton Heston chew more scenery than in Planet of the Apes in “Omega Man.” Then skip way back to the Vincent Price “The Last Man On Earth” – this original being superior to any zeitgeist-laden remake. Made for about $18, the Price movie has some genuinely chilling, pre Night of the Living Dead scary scenes, and the hopeless loneliness of this version also beats out the remakes.Will still probably see the new movie, if only to see Will Smith slap a bunch of zombies for putting things into their mouths….
Keep my wife’s brain out you f*in mouth!
His wife, for instance? And children?
Just what we needed, a sequel to a movie that completely screwed the source material’s title.
I am Legend is what happens when an 8-figure-a-film star demands script rewrites to make himself the same troubled but ultimately heroic character over and over again.
That’s not my understanding of what happened to that movie (much as it pains me to defend Will Smith, who consistently refuses to make interesting or risky choices). The original ending that they shot was close to Matheson’s book. But focus groups didn’t like it so they filmed the theatrical ending instead.
Still unmatched adaptation.
So… doesn’t that now make it canonical?
He’s not dead, he’s just restin’!
(I am)Legend 2: Non-canonical Boogaloo.
So a little context (spoiler for a 15 year old DVD bonus):The alternate (yet more faithful) ending sees a mutant draw a butterfly on the window, similar to the girl’s tattoo. Smith’s character then realizes the mutants aren’t trying to kill him, they’re trying to save her. He opens the door as a sign of good faith, and the mutants leave with the girl, leaving them unharmed.
More context (spoiler for a classic novel):the original novel’s title (I am legend) refers to the hero realizing he became a bogeyman to the mutants, a complete inversion of the hero fighting as a last bastion he thought he was. THIS was the basis for the alternate ending, but this one scored poorly on test audiences so the final ending went for a straight hero ending, completely ruining the whole point of the plot.
Stupid test audiences.
Why did he become the villain to the zombies? I vaguely remember the movie and remember the zombies were after him, but I thought they were just after him because zombies go after people. I haven’t watched it in ages because it’s scary. lol
Much like the original story, some of the zombies had developed intelligence and were not just “after him” for to kill him mindlessly, but because they were trying to defend themselves from someone who had spent years abducting and experimenting on them (the experiments always ended up being fatal). The title “I am Legend” refers to the fact that he had become a legend to their kind in the same way that vampires or the boogeyman are a legend to us. He was their monster.
Turns out, the real monsters were the William Smiths we met along the way…
Oh riiight, I had forgotten that some had gained intelligence and I completely forgot the experiments. I see I see. Thanks.
Which was readily evident, even watching the theatrical version. They should have cut the shot of the main zombie guy looking through the glass at the sedated woman zombie, because it was obvious in that moment she was what he was after.
They should first release a new cut of the original film with him surviving by slapping all the zombies to death.Alternatively,
open the second film with a scene showing him getting out of the shower
having dreamed the original ending and then slapping all the zombies to
death and go from there!
I saw the movie one time and remembered that he dies at the end and have no interest in a sequel. Mostly because.
And sadly, the dog did in fact Not Live.
*Spoilers for the novel*I wonder if the sequel will be the back part of the novel, where Ruth (possibly updated to be played by Michael B. Jordan) befriends Neville and there is some tension as Neville distrusts his new companion. Then they could set up sequels with Jordan as the leader of the new vampire society.
I didn’t hate this movie as a thing of its own; the jump scares were fun. But yeah, they really screwed it with the stupid theatrical ending. Focus groups don’t always know best.
So the non-canonical ending is now canonical? Good.
We’re all missing the real question: Will the sequel foreshadow a Batman/Superman movie that doesn’t suck?
“And, really, if you ask the average person who saw I Am Legend in 2007, would they even remember the original ending? Or would they just accept it if you told them that he lived?”Exactly. But you wrote an amazing article about it.
Maybe the sequel will be better and can get an award slapped onto it!
In the sequel, can they mention that they found a cut of world finest and that the virus did all of them a favor by not letting it come out! :)I still haven’t gotten over the death of Sam in that movie!