I am STILL Legend?

It was bound to happen and seriously, how could it not? Considering how much money Will Smith's I Am Legend has made in the last three and a half weeks, it was only a matter of time before Warner Bros. realized that they had potential for a sequel, and author Richard Matheson has written off on the sequel rights. (Hopefully, he'll feel inspired to actually write a NOVEL first, much like Thomas Harris did with "Hannibal" a few years ago, although then Harris went and wrote "Hannibal Rising" and wrote the screenplay for the awful sequel to boot.) I don't want to spoil the movie for the five people who haven't seen it (you know who you are) but in case you do plan on seeing it still... SPOILER WARNINGS!!!

It would be pretty hard to do a sequel with Will Smith without completely discounting what happened in the first movie/story,and I'm sure Smith is smart enough not to return for a sequel. The question that's going to have to go through the minds of whomever gets the job to figure out what to do next will be, "Can a sequel survive without Smith?" Sure, there are ways you can go involving the survivors of the first movie and the haven they found at the end of the movie or have other people show up in an abandoned New York, but how could it not feel like 28 Weeks Later? (I thought this year's sequel sucked compared to the first Danny Boyle directed movie.) I Am Legend is currently Will Smith's biggest opening movie, probably helped by the IMAX factor which put it on the biggest screens, but is it as much a case of Smith paired with a cool premise or is the premise strong enough to stand on its own? A sequel would probably cost less money without Smith's cost, but I dunno... the movie had a lot of problems, mostly the CGI and the pacing, but surely enough people liked it to want to see more of this world with or without Smith.

Then again, a sequel to Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes has never happened after all this time and that was SET-UP to do a sequel... does anyone remember how they went back and shot new footage for that lame ending solely to make it easier for a sequel? Surely, Fox would have done something by now... I mean, they did another AVP movie so...

Anyway, was the article says, just because Matheson has signed off on a sequel doesn't mean it's going to happen, but I think a sequel to this might be a mistake. What do you think?

Spielberg Takes on the Chicago 7

Steven Spielberg is back in "serious mode"--he seems to fluctuate back and forth from serious movies like Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List and Munich to summer popcorn movies like War of the Worlds and the upcoming Indiana Jones flick--but it's pretty obvious that The Trials of the Chicago 7, his take on the famous trials of the protesters who disrupted the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago due to America's movement into Vietnam is going to be more along the lines of Munich, allowing Spielberg to comment on his view of world politics. The irony of course is that 40 years ago, it was the *DEMOCRATS* who were being considered warmongers for getting involved in Vietnam, but the music festival thrown in Chicago which turned into a riot was NOTHING compared to the New York March before the Republican Convention in New York four years ago. Still, there's a lot of relevance now with what happened then, and fortunately, those interested in knowing more about the story, you can check out Brett Morgan's semi-documentary Chicago 10, which uses animation to recreate the court trials, although it's done very much in a humorous style while I'm sure Spielberg will take a more serious approach.
The project seems to be moving fast with Spielberg already thinking about casting with the likes of Sacha Baron Cohen and Philip Seymour Hoffman being mentioned as well as others like Will Smith and Taye Diggs. It would be impressive just to get Cohen and Hoffman as they'd probably add the necessary humor to the proceedings. (The trials were quite outrageous as the litigants realized it was a kangaroo court and didn't take them very seriously.) Anyway, Spielberg has his Abe Lincoln movie to make first, so it might be years before this movie happens.

More DC Comic Movie Rumors than You Can Shake a Stick At

I guess Variety's Anne Thompson has started to realize what we've always known here at ComingSoon.net (and our sister site Superhero Hype!) that the geeks rule the internet and the way to get them to read you is to post "news" about superhero movies. Her latest piece is not exactly news though... Bryan Singer not returning for Superman? Yeah, we kind of knew that. A different Superman in the Justice League movie? Yeah, we knew that, too... oh, and Warner Bros. wants Christopher Nolan back for another Batman movie. WHAT!?! NO WAY!!! Why on earth would they want THAT?! I'm just kidding of course. We all know that The Dark Knight will probably make close to $300 million this summer due to all the anticipation, but it seems to me like Variety, once the most reliable news source in the industry, is just playing catch-up to websites like CS, AICN and IESB. Should we just start calling them "V"?

Before I even had time to write something about this "news" another rumor came in that you can read here saying that Brandon Routh, the soap opera star turned Superman in Bryan Singer's Superman Returns, might not be brought back if and when they ever did a sequel.

UPDATE 1/5/08: And that's the problem with rumors... less than 24 hours later and AICN, another site notorious for posting rumors as facts, got in touch with a "mole" at Warner Bros. to rebuff the story and confirm that Routh would be returning. If only these sites could just wait until things are confirmed, movies are written and they start shooting. Here's the AICN update.

Not To Be Out-Rumored by the Distinguished Competition...

No, Marvel Films isn't leaking any new info to Variety, but MTV must have been upset that Variety was horning in on their turf so they posted an interview with Jon Favreau with a bit of "Oh Don Piano" (hopefully I don't have to explain this term) about the Iron Man director wanting to direct The Avengers movie. Well, sorry Jon, but there's no script yet and there's a writers' strike, not to mention Marvel Films wanting to establish the individual characters before doing a team movie. I'm sure Favreau would be interested... what comic fan wouldn't be interested, but I'd think that he's signed on to direct at least one or two more Iron Man movies after the one coming out in May makes so much money that it demands another one. (I understand that there's a lot of stuff set up in the movie that would carry over well.) I guess the only thing really pertinent is that Favreau admits having talked to Marvel Films about a potential Avengers movie and that they'd want to use the same actors. (Which means they should do it INSTEAD of a third Iron Man movie if they want Downey Jr. and Howard in their roles.) At least this sounds more promising than the upcoming Justice League movie even if we're going to be waiting a long LONG time... should we place bets on what year an Avengers movie comes out? I'm going with 2012.

Guillermo del Toro Building a New Frankenstein

Another bit that started with a rumor and has steamrolled from there. Back when I visited the set of Hellboy II, director Guillermo del Toro was asked whether he'd be interested in taking on some of his new studio Universal's classic monsters and he talked a bit about what he wanted to do with Frankenstein. Well, he's been doing a bit of sketching with the little bit of free time he has while doing post-production on the movie, so it definitely seems like he's been thinking more seriously about it. Guillermo also has about 500 other projects in various stages of development, and no, that's not me exaggerating either! Still, this does give one hope that maybe there'll be a definitive and decent Frankenstein movie for the 21st Century. Ryan Rotten of our sister horror site Shock Till You Drop then chimed in with his own bit about Guillermo's movie possibly being a combination of the first two movies, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein so that's even cooler, but I can't imagine that sort of movie being any less than three hours.... and then I remember Peter Jackson's King Kong. Hopefully, Guillermo will be able to condense those stories into something manageable and do something new and original rather than just doing a straight remake. And maybe we'll see this before that Avengers movies comes out in 2012.

That's all for today... hopefully I'll have more to discuss early next week.