With ‘I Am Legend 2’ officially not happening, one might wonder how the franchise could have gone forward and bring Will Smith (‘After Earth‘, ‘Independence Day‘) back into the mix? The entire premise when they were developing the sequel had Smith returning to the franchise. A prequel was a common idea that was thrown about but writer and director Akiva Goldsman (‘I, Robot’,’Jonah Hex’) recently sat down and discussed the various pitches that were given for the film before it was eventually canned.

So what route were they planning to go? Well it looks like the prequel was an option but somehow they had created a sequel as well! Here’s what Goldsman had to say:

“Oh no no, [there was] never a movie. I mean, we wrote a prequel [and] a sequel. We had a really interesting prequel, which was the first outbreak of the virus, during a Thanksgiving Day parade, which was awesome. We did a really interesting prequel that [took place] later. Which was right after the first… really right when the population of of humans became pretty decimated. And it was this sort of trek to Washington. Which included a dark seeker elephant that had broken out of the zoo.

Then we did a sequel, that started with Neville again — and you realized that he was cloned. We’ve tried every which way. In fact if you’re available you could be in the next movie. It will never happen but we really enjoyed trying to make it happen.”

So the prequel sounded like pretty standard fair for what you’d expect but a sequel with Will Smith’s Neville as a clone? Interesting premise but I’m personally glad they didn’t go that route. Clones are always a fun thought but even if we’re at the point where a clone could technically be created in a post apocalyptic setting, it still doesn’t sound like a clone could be quickly grown and be able to retain memories (which is a scientific breakthrough which has not occurred yet as cloning currently is only based off of DNA and not a full recreation.)

What are your thoughts on the potential prequel and sequel? Did you want to see Smith once again facing off against the mutant vampires that humanity had become or are you happy the door was closed on this project?

Source: IO9