Originally released in 2007 with Will Smith, Warner Bros. enjoyed a good deal of success with I Am Legend and has been trying to move forward with more ever since. Will Smith has been reluctant at best to return, which complicates things, but it now looks like Warner Bros. has found a way to get around that. The studio is looking to do a reboot of sorts where it’s going to use a script by Gary Graham that was entitled A Garden at the End of the World and rework it into this property instead. That script was described as a science fiction versions of The Searchers when he submitted it to the Black List site previously, which is what got Warner on board with it.
While there’s a lot of uncertainty about where it fits into the existence of the first one, the original producers are on board with it as Akiva Goldsman, James Lassiter and Joby Harold are all involved. They’re being joined by Roy Lee and Brooklyn Weaver of Oldboy and Out of the Furnace respectively.
Plot concept: Robert Neville (Will Smith) is a brilliant scientist, but even he could not contain the terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable…and manmade. Somehow immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City…and maybe the world. But he is not alone. He is surrounded by “the Infected” – victims of the plague who have mutated into carnivorous beings who can only exist in the dark and who will devour or infect anyone or anything in their path. For three years, Neville has spent his days scavenging for food and supplies and faithfully sending out radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. All the while, the Infected lurk in the shadows, watching Neville’s every move, waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind’s last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood. But his blood is also what The Infected hunt, and Neville knows he is outnumbered and quickly running out of time.
