Hmmmm…Didn’t the end of the theatrical version of I Am Legend result in Will Smith being blown to hell by his own grenade? Oh…. uhh… Spoiler alert?
A source of Ain’t It Cool News provided them with an interesting possible update to the status of the next I Am Legend film. It was originally thought to be a prequel for the obvious reason that Will Smith’s character, Robert Neville, died at the end of the film.
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I guess studios will stop at nothing to make a franchise out of something – whether it be prequels, sequels, reboots, etc. In this case though, the source for AICN has yet to be tested so this could all be mumbo jumbo.
Interestingly enough, the alternate ending of I Am Legend (which was far better in my opinion) that came along on the DVD has Neville living while paying tribute to earlier scenes and plot points of the film. Had that been the theatrically released ending, this quote from the source would make more sense:
“Let’s start at the beginning. Smith is actually the one who developed the initial story. It took place several years before the original film and there were still pockets of survivors and the story centered around Smith interacting, bonding, and ultimately failing to save them. For months this was the story. Warner’s didn’t much care for it and Smith and Weiss eventually came on board and all parties agreed to change things up. Well this change is pretty insane, the film is no longer a prequel, it’s a [insert profanity here] sequel!”
Weiss refers to D.B. Weiss who is reportedly writing the script for the next installment. Will Smith was also apparently involved in the next flick so can they spin this and pretend the alternate ending was the real ending? Maybe he’s not that involved and/or won’t be if it’s a sequel…
What do you think of a sequel? What did you think of a prequel? Is this as confusing to you as it is to me?
Source: Ain’t It Cool News
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28 Comments
Hollywood really needs to learn to leave well enough alone .
Sequle…No bad idea, wouldn’t work. What are you going to have Will be the villain and turn him into a super zombie? It just doesn’t make sense
If they want a sequel so bad why don’t they just give Neville a twin brother? From there, you can take the story twenty ways from Sunday! They lack imagination even to squeeze out sequels? How do these people sneak into these executive positions anyway? It must be the “Peter Principle” at work.
What is “Peter Principle” please ?
Gary’s got it right!
A sequel where the main character died in the first film?
A prequel when the first film showed how it all started?
What’s left of the story to tell? Sure we could catch up with the woman and her kid at that compound where she delivered the apparent cure. However calling a movie about them “I Am Still Legend” seems a bit of a stretch.
To err is human; to really foul things up requires a Hollywood executive! Hopefully Will Smith will have the good sense he’s demonstrated in the past and stay away from another “Legend” film.
I wonder if the main character will be a military colleague of Neville’s and Smith appears through flashbacks?
Could be an interesting way to team up Will Smith with with another actor of his calibur and maybe even have the vampires evolve enough to use the ending of the original novel?
If they make a sequel based on the alternate ending you know what reminds me of? Whenever you play a video game that has many possible endings and then the sequel comes out and starts out by saying that such-and-such ending took place and you’re like ‘What the F?!!? I didn’t play the first game that way!’
Let’s not forget that Hollyweird has a long and storied career (esp. in soap operas) of ignoring Death; there were, @ one point, some discussions about a sequel to “Titanic”, but saner heads prevailed.
As to the problem @ hand, the TV show “Sledge Hammer!” ended Season 1 with Hammer trying to defuse a nuke and blasting L.A. to its ruins; Season 2 picked up about 6 months earlier, roughly.
Go with the twin brother idea, but make him an egotistical son-of-a-buck; call it, “I Am (A) Legend In My Own Mind”
I thought the alternate ending was crap. The whole the zombies are in love and this isn’t about retribution or about feeding and they will let them go because they are actually reasonable and intelligent creatures garbage made me want to puke, lol. My opinion, some people liked it, but I hated it. The theatrical ending was much better in my opinion.
If the producers and writers are smart, they would walk away from it and leave well enough alone (Amen Gary). However since they won’t, their best option is to do a prequel, a man who sees humanity becoming theses zombiesque creatures, trying to stopit, Oh wait, thats the first film, never mind, Hollywood is stupid
Remember you never get a full shot of the back end of the truck the chick and the kid were driving. So i see a scenario where Smith used the grenade blew the hell out of the creatures but just managed to get behind or in something solid before he got ripped to shreds by the grenade. The chick couldnt leave well enough alone goes back in to find him beat up pretty bad, drags him out to the truck, tends to his wounds and then lays him down in the back. Voila, Smith lives, and the original ending still stands. Just a trick of not showing you all the angles kind of explanation.
@Ken J,
The alternate ending is significantly more in line with the book than the original theatrical ending.
Not that that is saying much, since it is still way off base compared to the book. But the whole point of the story is that the dude is killing what he thinks are mindless monsters, when in fact they have thoughts and feelings. He becomes their boogyman. He is legend.
I read the book to which the movie is “based” and see that film as a hack job compared to the amazing book. Sadly the book is very hard to translate but the character is so much more interesting and the exploration of loneliness and desperation was extraordinary. The film — bad at best for me.
the book is way different but i dont compare, movie was cool, will smith back again would be cool to but i dunno how they can do that.
nice pic
Sean, but in the book, they don’t run around like raving maniacs like they did in the movie. So you can’t have it both ways. In the book they were more like vampires, and he does know they have thoughts. There were two kinds of infected in the books, the intelligent vampire-like ones that just can’t take daylight, and the crazy undead ones with rotted brains. And in the book, even the smart infected try to kill the undead ones.
In the movie, it’s like they are all the undead crazy ones, then all of a sudden at the very end they become intelligent and rational… Pick one or the other. For me, I liked the theatrical ending more because it was more consistent with the rest of the film. It’ll be pretty dumb to have 99% of the film not be like the book, then have the last 1% be more like it. It doesn’t make any sense that way.
UH I’m really confused NOW…..
Wasn’t the idea of Smith becoming a “Legend,” the fact that he needed to DIE to accomplish his movie goal? THEN he became a Legend…..”I AM LEGEND…”
Also, even if he didn’t need to, the fact that he died at the end is what made the movie so riviting. Have him survive, and you turn it into just another Hollywood money-scam, like Gone With The Wind 2….. UUGHHHH
Let me start with they (and we all know who ‘they’ are) should let a good movie stand alone! Buuut, we’re talking about Hollywood here and we all ‘they’ ain’t gonna let that happen!
That being said, I think sneaky pete is on to something. A sort of classic Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers camera angle trick. Thats thin I admit, but it’s possible. And this would allow the intelligent vampires to have their time in front of the camera. It would make for a good movie if we could see the other group of vampires and find out there is a difference that was not told in the first film.
Perhaps the whole “I AM LEGEND” thingy refers to the dog…
(snicker…)
I’d buy it nowhereman – the dog was the best part of the movie for me.
I liked the movie but there are a few complications with Sneaky pete’s idea. One is that Neville was holding the gernade when it went kaboom. If someone can find a case when someone survives that Ill take that back. And yes I know its hollywood but honestly, I dont except someone to live afer blowing up but thats just me. And the other thing is that it kils the whole idea that Neville became a legend. Neville died to protect the cure and save millions of people who needed that cure. Its almost as if he was suppose to die, he finally heard gods plan as he put it and he knew what he had to do so that the girl could get the cure to other survivors.
I dont know just my opinion but that is a really good idea I just see some flaws.
I didnt even know this movie was based on a book to begin it (shows how well im infomed
) but I can see if they didnt follow the book to begin with then I can understand why they didnt use the alternate ending.
Well, in the book, he was the Legend simply because he WAS the last person alive. There were no other survivors. So instead of the vampires coming out at night to kill normal people, the “vampires” (infected) became the normal and Neville was the boogeyman that came out during the day to kill them. That’s why he was the Legend in the book. You know, vampires are legends to us, but now him, the sole human survivor is a legend to them.
But the way the movie is, since that’s no longer the case, in order for it to make sense and for him to be a Legend is for him to die. He’s still not really a legend to the infected since he’s only really doing what he’s doing in NYC, and he’s not really hunting them, just surviving and capturing a few to experiment on, so he is Legend to the people he saves with the cure after sacrificing his life to protect it.
So for the film, the theatrical ending makes more sense in my opinion.
Kill this please. Will Smith, you are not this stupid. You already have money!
They ruined their ONE oppertuinty to have any kind of continuation to this film when they went with the scene where Will Smith Dies, AND put showed that version on the big screen. If they went with the original version with him, Anna and Ethan escaping to the woods, it would make perfect sence to have a sequal.
But Alas, “Das’ Hollywood”
Pick it up right after the ‘boom’! Smith can be shown waking and evaluating his damage and ‘where he goes now’…
So he servived that somehow?
Like it turns out that although the virus didn’t mutate him into one of those THINGS, it did make him impervious to fire?
Well t’challa, the irony of that is that the ending where he survives sucks. So if they would have ended it that way, less people would be willing to shell out cash for a sequel. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
I don’t know about you but i really liked I Am Legend and specially Will Smith so a sequel or a prequel ? Well hell yes. I would love it becose first: the idea it self is very good
secondly: W. Smith is the best actor on the hole universe, so both, if i had three then all thubs up for a next movie.
How about, it turns out that at the end where Anna and Ethan pull up to the bunker, Will Smith is actually bandaged up in the back of the SUV.
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