WILL SMITH TO RETURN FOR 'LEGEND' PREQUEL: Actor reteams with director Francis Lawrence for new film

Will Smith has agreed to reprise his role as scientist Robert Neville in a prequel to his 2007 blockbuster "I Am Legend."

Francis Lawrence will also return as director of the project, which is based on a detailed outline that was written over the past few months by Lawrence, Smith and the film's producers Akiva Goldsman and James Lassiter, according to Variety.

The prequel will chronicle the final days of humanity in New York before a man-made virus caused a plague that left Smith’s character the lone survivor among a mutated mob in the city.

Making a prequel was the only way to stretch a franchise that grossed $584 million worldwide for Warner Bros. and keep Smith in the lead role. His character was killed in the first film, after extracting a potential cure for the virus for the scattered survivors