Smith's Overbrook Entertainment and Akiva Goldsman have closed a deal with the studio for the follow-up, according to Deadline.  Smith previously discussed plans for a prequel that would depict Neville in Washington D.C. and New York as the cities fell to the mutated hoards.  With today's news comes the baffling word that apparently, "film is not being called a prequel." 

Maybe that's just a technicality or a reluctance to use the label, since a sequel with Smith wouldn't make any sense.  Spoiler alert and all, but Smith's character blew himself up at the end of the first film, thanks a grenade conveniently stashed in his laboratory.  That ending was actually a last minute reshoot that dramatically changed the film's conclusion, which initially was more in line with the great Richard Matheson story on which I Am Legend is based.

Akiva Goldsman contributed to the first film's screenplay, revising a draft by Mark Protosevich that had been kicking around for well over a decade.  He's not set to write the prequel/sequel/whatever it is.  Instead, Arash Amel is working on the new movie's script.  Amel is not a big name as of yet, but he wrote this year's thriller The Expatriate and Grace of Monaco, a widely praised project that's currently in pre-production.

No word as to whether or not Francis Lawrence, who directed I Am Legend, will be returning for another round of post-apocalyptic business.  Lawrence just directed last year's Water for Elephants, and he has a number of potential movies in development, any one of which could take precedence over I Am Legend 2.

Smith, meanwhile, is ending his hiatus this year with Men in Black 3, a 3D summer movie hoping to continue the franchise a decade after Men in Black 2.  He's also currently in production on After Earth, a science fiction adventure in which he stars with his son, Jaden Smith.  That film, due next year, is directed by M. Night Shyamalan.