EXCLUSIVE: After years of trying, Warner Bros finally has found a way to extend its hit Will Smith last-man-on-Earth blockbuster I Am Legend into a potential new franchise. The studio is working on a reboot that isn’t meant to star Smith, who has been reluctant to do sequels and so far has avoided a reprise in Independence Day 2. Warner is retrofitting A Garden At The End Of The World, a spec script that the studio bought back in April from Gary Graham, who was working at the Apple store in midtown Manhattan when he posted his script on the Black List website and got the attention of CAA and manager Brooklyn Weaver. They signed him and sent his script out. Amid several bids, Warner Bros acquired what was described as a sci-fi version of John Wayne’s The Searchers. 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.
Original I Am Legend producers Akiva Goldsman of Weed Road, Overbrook’s James Lassiter and Safehouse Pictures’ Joby Harold are on board to produce, along with Vertigo’s Roy Lee, and Weaver. The studio made a previous attempt to prequelize Legend, hiring Arash Amel to write a script that would have brought Smith’s Robert Neville scientist character back, right before the calamitous events that left him alone on the planet. They just couldn’t figure it out and scrapped the attempt. The 2007 original grossed $586 million worldwide, $256 million of it domestic.
This would not be the first time that a free-standing script was retrofitted to extend a franchise. The Jonathan Hensleigh script Simon Says was turned into Die Hard With A Vengeance; George Nolfi’s script Honor Among Thieves became the basis for Ocean’s Twelve and most recently, Adam Cozad’s Dubai into the Jack Ryan reboot. As for Graham, he is now a long way from selling iPhones and is making a solid living as a New York-based screenwriter. CAA and Weaver still rep Graham, along with lawyer Jeff Frankel. WB’s Andy Fischel is overseeing this. Jonathan Krauss and Ian Puente, who were very involved when this project was sold as an original, will be exec producers.
mike flemming you are a nerd. Stop calling it SCRIBE.
“Scribe” is Variety-speak, the maagzine’s unique slanguage, and part of Flemming’s DNA. Keep the flame burning, Mike!
Damn, buried him in the headline
without will smith its just called “development”
I’m confused. Is this a reboot or a sequel?
I Am Legend demands a sequel and then a prequel.
Do things out of order the way Lucas did Star Wars.
I want to see: I Was Legend then I Will Be Legend.
The examples given of free standing scripts being turned into franchise extenders hardly gives much confidence.
I love that all the scripts listed as getting retrofitted into another franchise became crap films (well, at least “Die Hard With a Vengeance” wasn’t as bad as “Die Harder”).
Thanks for the reporting Mr. Fleming, but I do hope some lackey composed that headline, not you. We all had day jobs before we made it in this business. I would prefer not to be forever branded as ‘fish hatchery employee.’
Yeah, that headline cheapens his hard work as a writer. Can’t wait for “Forklift Operator Sells Pilot to NBC” and “TGI Friday’s waiter nabs two-picture deal.”
So, there was going to be a prequel, but it was scrapped. Instead, they’ll reboot with a new actor so they can create a multi-movie franchise. I want to see a study. How much of Hollywood right now if focused on reboots/sequels as a opposed to new concepts and compare it to declines in box office revenues over the last 10 years or so, because I swear, Hollywood can’t come up with anything new.
If there are any declines in box office revenues it’s probably related to the rise of home and personal technologies for viewing movies.
It’s the familiarity of a franchise (prequels/sequels) or concept (reboots) that actually draws people into movie theatres on a reliable basis. However I do agree that the lack of originality in Hollywood is a sad state of affairs.
As a fellow screenwriter, its stories like this that make me smile. Kudos to you Gary!
Easy to make mistakes when writing comments, but it’s has an apostrophe in it when it is a contraction.
A small point, true…but screenwriters should know and love language and break rules for a point.
Have a good day.
Knowing and loving language is not the same as being a proper writer. I’d even go so far as to argue that while screenwriters absolutely require a strong knowledge of conversational language (since that is the form used in a movie), their writing ability doesn’t have to be anywhere near excellent. In fact writers are sometimes too proper, so communication breaks down between them and the movie producers. That would be counter-intuitive.
This is the saddest post I’ve ever read.
Thank-you for your support. The elite attitude many people in this world hold against others is saddening to me, too.
That is a horrible response. Conversational language is the form used in a movie? All movies? Their ability doesn’t have to be near excellent? You need to take some serious time in actually reading. Not just scripts, but a book or something. Sad. Really sad.
Interesting. You managed to combine a surplus of both snobbishness and naivety into one post. I will admit that ‘conversational’ wasn’t exactly the best word to use, but I still stand by the fact that spoken language is necessarily different from literature in form and in use. You imply a scriptwriter’s technical skill has to be near excellent but you and I both know mediocrity exists everywhere and yet people still engage in professional work. Do you think even a majority of movies put out today represent the pinnacle of script? Or anything even close to adequate? Finally telling me to read more books is like telling a person to breathe more air, which makes your last sentences simply hilarious. All said I’m surprised you wasted your own time writing that shit down. I, however, am willing to argue about this for the rest of time if you’re up to it.
I wonder how fast Richard Matheson is spinning in his grave right now. Can’t ANYONE treat his story and characters with even the most modest degree of respect?
They should reboot OMEGA MAN instead
Hey, why couldn’t the script just have been something new, the way the writer intended? I know, CUH-RAZY, right???? Because all the those OTHER retrofit movies worked so well. Gary. Cash the check and divorce yourself from the your original idea. Then just start snorting the white stuff. Lots and lots of white stuff. Numb them all out.