Sometimes you read a headline and for a moment think you were reading something off The Onion but sadly it seems true that Warner Brothers has decided to reboot their 2007 ‘I Am Legend‘ into a series.
One the one hand it doesn’t seem as if it was only seven years ago that this Will Smith featured summer blockbuster that gave us our first tease of a ‘Batman v Superman’ movie premiered in theaters. Making over $585 million worldwide on a $150 million budget, this was clearly an indication that the studio would want to revisit the series but without Will Smith in a sequel. But does Warner Brothers really think people would want to come and see the same story again so soon?
Apparently they do. Although, I’m not sure how much faith they actually have in the concept as they are “retrofitting” a script from a new writer named Gary Graham titled ‘A Garden at the End of the World’ and turning it into a new take on the concept. The original script was actually written by Graham while he was working at an Apple store and was intended to be a science fiction riff on ‘The Searches,’ a John Wayne film from 1956 that had a man trying to rescue his niece from an Indian tribe.
Clearly we’re going to be seeing the new lead trying to rescue someone from the vampire/zombie creatures in the film if they follow true to that concept at all.
According to Deadline:
“When Graham was brought in to rewrite his script, the studio by then had talked to the ‘I Am Legend’ producers and noted enough similarities to the themes and mythology of that film that they asked the scribe to consider a redraft to fit that property.”
I don’t suppose many new screenwriters would turn down such an offer from a major production company. Even a major production company that is clearly making a huge mistake. Now if you can all excuse me for a few minutes.. I’m going to go slam my head into the wall until the pain of another reboot stops.
Maybe they’ll let the dog live in this one.
What do you think of the plans of Warner Brothers rebooting ‘I Am Legend’? Did you like the movie enough to hope that we’d see more of the universe that they created?
