A sequel to the 2007 last man on Earth movie I Am Legend starring Will Smith was in the works for a while, but never was able to find its legs. Warner Brothers isn’t ready to let that stop them from making more movies in the franchise, however. So instead of a sequel with Smith, they’ve decided to try rebooting the property entirely.

The story of how the reboot came to be is an interesting one at least. Warner Bros. acquired the rights to a spec script written by Gary Graham, an Apple store employee at the time who submitted his work on the Black List website, catching the attention of Creative Artists Agency, who then signed him. They sent out his script, it attracted plenty of attention, and the bidding war was on with WB coming out on top.

The script, titled A Garden At The End Of The World, is said to be like a sci-fi version of the John Wayne movie The Searchers. Warner eventually realized that it shared some similarities with I Am Legend, giving them the idea to talk to Graham about reworking it as a reboot of the existing property—a strategy that’s been used in the past for movies like Die Hard with a Vengeance, Ocean’s Twelve, and Jack Ryan.

The plan is to completely start from scratch, without Will Smith starring. Original producers Akiva Goldsman, James Lassiter, and Joby Harold will again produce, joined by Roy Lee and Brooklyn Weaver.

[Source: Deadline]