I AM LEGEND Reboot In The Works Without Will Smith

Hollywood looking to reboot the film as a franchise…

It looks like Warner Bros. has decided not to move forward with a follow-up to its post-apocalyptic sci-fi ‘I Am Legend,’ as Deadline hears that plans are now in the works to reboot the property, without Will Smith.

According to the site, the studio is looking to retrofit newcomer scribe Gary Graham’s spec script ‘A Garden At The End Of The World.’ The spec script, which Graham posted to the Black List website when working in New York’s Apple store, apparently shares enough similarities to the themes and mythology of the Smith-leg flick that the bigwigs over at Warner Bros. asked Graham to consider a redraft to fit that property.

Original producers, Weed Road’ Akiva Goldsman (who also wrote the first film), James Lassiter of Overbrook Entertainment and Safehouse Pictures’ Joby Harold, are on board to produce, along with Vertigo Entertainment’s Roy Lee, and Brooklyn Weaver of Energy Entertainment.

Retrofitting free-standing scripts to extend a franchise is nothing new. Jonathan Hensleigh’s script ‘Simon Says’ was turned into ‘Die Hard With A Vengeance,’ and George Nolfi’s script ‘Honor Among Thieves’ was the basis for ‘Ocean’s Twelve.’ More recently, the Adam Cozad penned ‘Dubai’ was redrafted as ‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.’

Loosely based on the 1954 novel by acclaimed author Richard Matheson, ‘I Am Legend’ was directed by Francis Lawrence and starred Will Smith as Dr. Robert Neville, the sole survivor of a deadly pandemic that has killed or turned the rest of humanity into vampire-like creatures.