I Am Legend 2? Really? Anyone have an original idea anymore?
Since I Am Legend hit theaters back on December 14th, it’s grossed around $228 million, according to Box Office Guru. Will Smith is a huge draw and movie goers went out in droves to catch this film.
Apparently, it did so well that Warner Brothers is seeing $$$ in their eyes and have gotten I Am Legend author Richard Matheson to sign off on sequel rights to the movie.
According to the source of this rumor, (ShockTilYouDrop) this doesn’t necessarily mean a sequel WILL be made, it just gives Warner Brothers the rights to one if they find a good script or feel it would be wise move.
I’m not going to get into the obvious reasons why this is a horrible idea based on the way the first movie finished. The fact is that it’s sad to me that Hollywood apparently is so short on movie ideas, especially science fiction plots, that they resort to sequels on movies that really shouldn’t have them.
Mark Harris of Entertainment Weekly wrote an article an issue or two back about this topic, which is why it was on my mind when I saw the news about an I Am Legend sequel. The article was titled “Is science fiction out of ideas?” and raised some interesting points.
The thing is, not only is this idea for a sequel bad, but I Am Legend is already a movie that’s been made THREE TIMES now, just under different names. That’s part of the reason why I had hoped it would be more like the book, because at least that would have FELT original.
Heck, even a series I love, Battlestar Galactica, is taken from an old TV show. You can’t get away from it.
Harris writes:
It’s one thing to revere and refresh a genre’s history; it’s another to live obsessively in the past, especially if science fiction’s whole purpose is to extrapolate elements from today’s world to create a future we’ve never imagined. When it comes to spaceships, giant monsters from afar, cloning, and robots, we’ve now been there, done that, remade it, added new CGI, seen the director’s cut, played the videogame, read the fan fiction, and bought the collectibles. Where do we go from here?
That’s a good question. I have no idea. I think it lies in the hands of the writers of stories to come up with some new ideas that will take what we have and flip it upside down. Harris makes this point as well, saying he just wishes a “great writer or director with no affection for the genre would let his imagination run wild…”
He adds:
It happened 40 years ago, when Stanley Kubrick, following his own ice-cold muse and his fascination with science itself, decided he wanted to create something that ”extended the range of science fiction,” a genre that didn’t particularly impress him. What nerve! The result was 2001: A Space Odyssey, which changed the game so completely that in movies, the sci-fi genre immediately vanished for a few years while everyone surveyed an irrevocably altered landscape.
2001 must have blown people’s minds! What a great moment in movie history.
My imagination isn’t built for thinking of a way to fix something like this, but I’m very much behind the idea.
Personally, I think what makes good science fiction is a unique story. The Matrix was a movie I think that fits the bill a little bit here. At least technically it took future science fiction movies to a new level with the cameras and technology it developed to make the film.
But more than that, the story hadn’t been seen or done before (to my recollection) and it was a great, UNIQUE experience.
Another movie that I loved in this way was Dark City, a film people usually haven’t heard of but was fantastic and different. Keifer Sutherland is one of the stars of the movie alongside Jennifer Connelly.
I remember seeing it and thinking “That was so different than the stuff I usually watch in science fiction, and it was so wonderful to experience.” Why can’t they make more movies like that?
While I Am Legend certainly has a plot that should be cool enough to define as unique, it’s been done before and the writers still were too scared to end the movie the way Matheson ended the book.
Now THAT would have been something that made people think. Something different.
What do you think? Is the genre stale? Can you think of any good unique sci-fi films?
I have one more that I will bring up a bit later today or tomorrow, a movie recommendation that fits the definition of science fiction and unique.
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