I Am Legend 2: How Will Smith will return in sequel after his character died in the 2007 film?
I Am Legend 2, after he died in the original film in 2007, I Am Legend. How is this possible? Will there be flashback scenes with Will Smith in the sequel?
Here’s what we know of the return of Will Smith in I Am Legend 2.
How is I Am Legend 2 bringing Will Smith’s character back?
Will Smith’s character in I Am Legend, Dr Robert Neville, will come back in I Am Legend 2, but definitely not through flashbacks or any backstory scenes.
The writers have made Will Smith’s return possible in I Am Legend 2 by following the 2007 film's alternate ending. In that ending, Dr Robert Neville lives and does not have to sacrifice himself against the zombies
Dexterto reports that this was also the ending in Richard Matheson’s 1954 post-apocalyptic horror novel, I Am Legend, on which the first film was based.
Matheson’s book was earlier adapted in The Omega Man, the 1971 post-apocalyptic action film directed by Boris Sagal and starring Charlton Heston. In fact, The Omega Man is the second adaptation of Matheson's book, the first being the 1964 post-apocalyptic film The Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price.
I Am Legend thus was the third adaptation of the book, and now its sequel.
In February 2023, Akiva Goldsman, the producer of I Am Legend 2, told Deadline that the sequel film will be based «a few decades later than the first.»
He said he was inspired by «The Last of Us, where we see the world just post-apocalypse but also after a 20-30-year lapse».
Goldsman also informed that I Am Legend 2 will be filmed in New York, although he wasn’t sure «if they’ll climb up to the Empire State Building».
«We trace back to the original Matheson book, and the alternate ending as opposed to the released ending in the original film,” he confirmed.
