Normally it would be safe to say never say never when it comes to sequels, but in this case, I Am Legend 2 is not going to happen. If you watched the film then you’re aware of a possibility that it could be taken in a new direction but that it would need a lot star power that it might not get for various reasons. The whole idea of making another movie would be set against a seriously uphill battle to find a way to present it in a way that would spark peoples’ interest and would entice them to come and watch rather than wait for it to come out on DVD or Netflix. That people would go to see it in the theater is no doubt but the likelihood of the sequel being better than the first is a longshot that many filmmakers might not want to take. There are ways to make a second movie into something worthy but then again there are reasons against it too.
Here are just a few.
There would have to be an all new cast.
The only two cast members left beyond the infected were the boy and the woman that were stuffed in the coal chute at the end of the final fight. Of course if the director’s cut had been the ending that everyone saw in the theaters then it could have been difference since Will Smith could have come back. But going off of the ending that was presented in the theaters would mean that Smith couldn’t come back since he sacrificed himself so that the cure could be saved and humanity might have a chance to finally make their way back from the staggering losses they’d incurred after the infection had spread. A new cast could be a blessing to this film if it was ever made, but it could also be the thing that managed to drag it down too.
The disease would have to change slightly.
Given that New York is a huge city and offers many darkened areas for the infected to roam it would stand to reason that they might not inhabit other areas quite as heavily since the surroundings that offer the most continuous shadow are bound to be their favored locations. That means that there would be a lot of small towns and areas across the nation that might benefit from their size and an ability to set defenses that might help them stay alive. Unfortunately it would also mean that the disease might have to mutate just a bit in order to favor the infected, as it’s seen that this happens in various movies where an infection that turns humans into monsters occurs. Like human beings, diseases do tend to evolve. That could make it possible to find a new angle for the movie. But once again it could take it too far off course as well.
There’s no guarantee of a cure.
Does anyone remember that before he noticed that the treatment was working that Will Smith’s character went through a LOT of failures? This seems to suggest that genetics of each individual person would be different enough that they would need more than just an injection of the cure in order to start showing any marked improvement. That’s not to say that the cure wouldn’t work at all, but you also have to think about how many people are still around that could analyze the cure and come up with a way to make more. And then it remains to be seen if, as mentioned above, the disease could mutate and find a way past the cure, thereby making it useless. When it comes to the cure there are so many things that could go wrong that it would be more fitting to see this than it would to suddenly realize that everyone in the world that was infected could be cured and there would be a happy ending for all. That’s just not how the story was set up, no matter if that’s what people want.
I Am Legend had all the potential in the world to be a great post-apocalyptic film that would showcase a single person trying to survive in a world that had been ravaged by a disease that turned people into monsters. But somewhere along the line it just flopped and never really recovered. The only saving grace it had is that it set up a potentially happy ending as the cure was found and sent off to safety, thereby insuring the continuation of the human race. But the open-ended nature of it was kind of great since you don’t really know if the two of them made it to safety and have to guess that they did. There wasn’t much of a happy ending, but it was a hopeful one at least.
The only hope now is that they don’t make a sequel and let it rest.
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