Constantine and I Am Legend sequels are top priority for Warner Bros. and Weed Road

Akiva Goldsman’s production company Weed Road recently had film and TV deals at MGM, but now that MGM executives Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy have moved over to Warner Bros., intending to give the studio’s theatrical franchise output a boost, Weed Road has followed them. Deadline reports that Weed Road has signed a multi-year first look deal with Warner Bros… and since Goldsman has already done a lot of work for the studio over the decades, he sees this deal as a bit of a homecoming. With Weed Road now calling Warner Bros. home, the top priority for the companies are a pair of projects they were already working on together: sequels to the 2005 comic book adaptation Constantine (which Goldsman produced) and the 2007 Richard Matheson adaptation I Am Legend (which Goldsman produced and co-wrote).

Goldsman told Deadline, “We’re starting with two projects that are fun and very much Warners; the sequel to I Am Legend, with Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan, and the sequel to Constantine with Keanu Reeves that Francis Lawrence is going to direct. So I’m coming out of the gate fast. We’re doing (the Constantine sequel) with JJ Abrams, and Francis and Keanu and I have been pretty deep in the story breaking stage.“

Goldsman is writing the screenplay for the Constantine sequel and is producing the film alongside JJ Abrams and Hannah Minghella. Lorenzo DiBonaventura and Erwin Stoff serve as executive producers. Reeves is reprising the role of supernatural exorcist and demonologist John Constantine, who in the original is dying but stays around to save his soul by keeping demons from hell from breaching earth. He also gets between a battle between the archangel Gabriel and Lucifer. The new film expands on the themes the original brought, about maintaining the barrier between earth and the evil creatures that are on the other side.

Goldsman wouldn’t share any details about the role Michael B. Jordan will be playing in the I Am Legend sequel, but he did say, “This will start a few decades later than the first. I’m obsessed with The Last of Us, where we see the world just post-apocalypse but also after a 20-30-year lapse. You see how the Earth reclaims the world, and there’s something beautiful in the question of, as man steps away from being the primary tenant, what happens? That will be especially visual in New York. I don’t know if they’ll climb up to the Empire State Building, but the possibilities are endless. We trace back to the original Matheson book, and the alternate ending as opposed to the released ending in the original film. What Matheson was talking about was that man’s time on the planet as the dominant species had come to an end. That’s a really interesting thing we’re going to get to explore. There will be a little more fidelity to the original text.“

De Luca and Abdy said Goldsman is “a consummate producer, a brilliant writer, and a kind and generous human being. We’ve both known and worked with Akiva for years, and never cease to be amazed by his combination of filmmaking mettle and limitless imagination. We couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome him back to the Warner Bros. family, where he has delivered some of the Studio’s most successful and acclaimed projects of the past two decades.“

Are you glad to hear Warner Bros. and Weed Road are moving forward with the Constantine and I Am Legend sequels? Share your thoughts on this news by leaving a comment below.

I only saw Constantine once, back in 2006, and don’t remember much about it… but since Keanu Reeves wanted to play the character again, I’m glad he’s getting the chance to. I’m also glad to hear that the I Am Legend sequel will have “more fidelity to the original text”, because Matheson’s story is great and the 1964 Vincent Price film The Last Man on Earth is still the closest adaptation we’ve ever gotten. (The book also served as the basis for the 1971 Charlton Heston film The Omega Man.)