Since Will Smith’s upcoming I Am Legend sequel rewrites the ending of the original 2007 movie, even viewers who have seen its predecessor could be confused when I Am Legend 2 arrives in theaters. It’s not all that unusual for a sequel to retcon some of the events of preceding movies in its franchise. In the sci-fi genre, which is often infamous for its plot twists, some franchises have even retconned the events of entire movies. Viewers starting the Terminator series in 2026 should go in aware that its timeline will be rebooted more than thrice throughout.
However, the upcoming sequel, I Am Legend 2, is a unique case. The original 2007 movie I Am Legend follows Will Smith’s Dr. Robert Neville, the last man left alive in New York after a devastating virus outbreak turns almost all of humanity into vampiric monsters known as “Darkseekers.” These nocturnal hunters appear to be unthinking, ravenous monsters until the movie’s ending. This is where director Francis Lawrence’s adaptation diverges wildly from the source material, author Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend.
I Am Legend 2 Retcons The Original Movie’s Ending Completely
In every version of the story, Neville captures Darkseekers and experiments on them in the hopes of reversing their condition and finding a cure for the outbreak. In the movie’s theatrical ending, Neville finds his cure and passes it on to two other survivors before taking his own life by blowing up his lab to kill the horde of Darkseekers swarming his building. However, in the novel and I Am Legend’s alternate ending, Neville realizes that the Darkseekers aren’t attacking him without reason or provocation, but simply trying to retrieve their kidnapped kin.
It’s this realization that gives the story its haunting title; understanding that the Darkseekers are sentient beings with thoughts, emotions, and loved ones leads Neville to see that, from their perspective, he is the unthinking, unfeeling monster that kills their kind with impunity. The upcoming sequel, I Am Legend 2, is set to make this alternate ending into the official, canonical ending of the first film, meaning Smith’s Neville will return in the follow-up alongside franchise newcomer Michael B Jordan.
I Am Legend 2 Using The Original Movie’s Alternate Ending Could Prove Difficult
The decision to use the alternate ending, rather than the theatrical cut, as the canonical ending is almost unprecedented in movie history. For viewers who have only seen the original version of the film, the very fact that I Am Legend 2 stars Will Smith will be confounding in itself, since his character dies in the ending of the original movie. Moreover, the realization that the Darkseekers aren’t monsters bent on wanton destruction and murder isn’t included in the only version of the movie that the vast majority of the public saw.
The odds are good that I Am Legend 2 will need to open with some form of explanatory recap to get everyone on the same page, but only time will tell how the sequel handles this. One of the only comparable situations is 2009’s The Descent Part 2, which made the original movie’s US cut canonical and overwrote the ending of the UK cut by revealing that the heroine survived the events of The Descent. However, this sequel’s story was at least familiar to American viewers, whereas I Am Legend 2’s Neville return won’t make sense to anyone who didn’t happen to see I Am Legend’s alternate ending on DVD or online.