Yeah, about that... Rumors are flying all over the internets that the new film will, in fact, be a sequel. That bastion of journalistic integrity Ain't It Cool News is reporting that the plans for a prequel have been scrapped. According to their admittedly untested source, neither Warner Brothers nor Mr. Smith liked the idea, so they've decided to make the new film a continuation of the first story.

OK. We'll take all of this with a gigantic grain of salt; and honestly, we actually don't even believe it. But it's interesting because perhaps now everyone involved with I Am Legend realizes that the original conclusion was a much better way to end the film. Still available on YouTube, the alternate ending, which was a major selling point for the DVD, spares Mr. Smith's life, allowing him and his new nuclear family to drive off into uncertainty. While it's a much more open-ended affair, it works infinitely better with the tone the film had already established in its first (excellent) hour. And while the CGI vampires still look awful, they have a weirdly touching humanity about them that comes through more in the alternate seven-minute denouement.

If this new film ends up being an outright sequel, would they just pick things up with our preferred alternate version? If so, we can get behind this idea. With that ending, I Am Legend could have been a lot more  than fodder for recurring nightmares. Maybe a sequel will change that. Though we'll still watch it through the slits in our fingers as our hands cover our eyes.

What we do know is that Seven Pounds is from the same team that brought us The Pursuit of Happyness (do with that information what you will). Oh, and Woody Harrelson plays a blind guy. The good news? Heeello, Rosario Dawson! It's about time someone put you in a big December movie. Ditto for you, Barry Pepper. Right now we're highly skeptical about this one, but again, it's Will Smith, so...see you at the theater in December.

Popular Mechanics decided to take on Will Smith head on: "Between a highly regimented schedule hunting deer in Times Square with his dog, Sam, and swinging a five-iron from atop a naval cruiser, Neville tries to find a way to reverse the virus using his own immune blood even as the Infected are closing in, setting traps and hunting him. But how much of this sure-to-be blockbuster Hollywood film (based on a famous sci-fi novel) is fact, and how much is fiction? We consult experts in the fields of structural engineering, virology and wildlife to determine what could happen—and what certainly won't."

Some highlights:

Even Alvin and the Chipmunks (No. 3) managed to do spectacular business, earning $45 million nationally—far more than anyone, including this reporter, expected it to. (Did these people actually respond to the teaser which featured one of the chipmunks apparently eating pooh? Seriously?) When Jason Lee appeared in Kevin Smith’s Mallrats, one could have guessed, while admiring his natural charm and good looks, that he would make it one day. (Almost Famous—fine, perfect, even.) But not like this.

As was expected, Juno (No. 2) and Atonement (No. 4) maintained their high rankings, as they both expanded into seven theaters. In its second week, the Ivan-Reitman comedy averaged close to $40,000 (an incredibly robust figure), while Joe Wright’s Atonement averaged a not-to-shabby $28,000. Remarkably, due to the expansion (and the Golden Globe nominations, presumably) the latter, which stars Keira Knightley, experienced a near-80 percent increase in revenue. How’s that for a bump?

This is the first week where No Country for Old Men (No. 6) has been ranked higher nationally, than in the city. Interest here is beginning to wan, as the film only barely managed to average over $10,000 on nine screens, but the movie collected $3 million in national receipts, making it another clear beneficiary of Awards Season buzz.

Meanwhile, another Oscar hopeful, Kite Runner (No. 7) had a strong opening—if not stellar—on three screens, averaging over $30,000 despite the delayed release and crowded marketplace. Both The Savages (No. 9) and Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (No. 10) were competing for the same audience. (Welcome, Mr. Schnabel. I knew I see you here, eventually.)

For a weekend with so many clear winners, it’s especially sad to point out the week’s clear loser: Francis Coppola’s Youth Without Youth. Oh, well. Who would have thought that Mr. Coppola would one day make a better winemaker than director? I guess Orson Welles eventually became a better wine spokesman than director, no? Maybe there’s some small comfort in that, or maybe not.

List of theaters: Paris, Zeigfeld, Oprheum, East 85th St., 86th St. East, 84th St., Lincoln Plaza, 62nd and Broadway, Lincoln Square, Magic Johnson, 72nd St East, Cinemas 1, 2 &3rd Ave, 64th and 2nd , Imaginasian, Manhattan Twin, First and 62nd St., Angelika Film Center, Quad, IFC Center, Film Forum, Village East, Village Seven, Cinema Village, Union Square, Essex, Battery Park 11, Sunshine, 34th Street, Empire, E-Walk, Chelsea, 19th Street East, and Kips Bay.

Manhattan Weekend Box Office: How moviegoers in the multiplexes of middle America choose to spend their ten-spot is probably a big deal in Hollywood. But here in Manhattan, the hottest movies aren't always the ones making the big bucks nationwide. Using Nielsen numbers for Manhattan theaters alone and comparing them to the performance of the national weekend box office can tell you a lot about our Blue State sensibilities. Or nothing at all! Each Monday afternoon, we will bring you the results.

Staggering back out into Times Square's holiday crush from the screening room it seemed we'd just been through an aerobic workout before even facing the crowds of tourists and commuters—surprisingly not zombies.

And the lingering questions were weird ones. Would corn naturally grow in Madison Square Park if humanity were wiped out, or did Will Smith have to plant it there himself? Should I get a German shepherd?

But what really stuck was this: why is Hollywood (and, it sometimes seems, much of the rest of the world the world) so keen to see New York City obliterated?

The movie is scary. Scary in the don't-look-over-in-that-dark-corner-Will-Smith-there's-a-zombie way that you already know from every horror movie since Nosferatu, but also terrifying in a "holy crap, this is how it could all go down" kind of way.

I Am Legend is based on Richard Matheson's 1954 book, which has been the source material for all sorts of science-horror movies, and written way before we were scared of airplanes flying into buildings, biological warfare, and of funny-sounding but deadly diseases like bird flu. It's hard to know anymore what to be more scared of: the weather or germs. But New York seems to get it either way, with tidal waves crashing through midtown in The Day After Tomorrow or aliens bursting through sidewalks in last year's War of the Worlds (yes, New Jersey, but close enough) and covering the people with a sickeningly-familiar gray ash. And there's more to come: the trailer for J.J. Abram's much buzzed-over Cloverfield shows the Statue of Liberty's head being blown off. Great.

The premise of the movilete goes like this: a scientist (a brilliant, un-credited cameo by Emma Thompson) announces she's cured cancer with a man-made virus. Except, whoops! The virus mutates, goes airborne, and those infected change into gnashing-toothed, red-eyed monsters with an apparent insatiable appetite for human flesh.

A couple of years later—with the exception of Will Smith's Robert Neville, a military virologist with a sweet Washington Square Park townhouse and even sweeter doggie companion (yay, vacancy rates!)—humans are no more. At least, not as humans.

All the chomp-chomp-chomp of zombie attacks scare in predictable horror-movie fashion, but that's nothing compared to the feeling of dread that settles in when director Francis Lawrence shows his New York City of the future: desolate with grass growing up and over Park Avenue sidewalks, deserted cars abandoned in the streets, the only sound of life is the flock of birds flying overhead or the herds of deer going for a romp up Lexington (until one gets eaten by a lion, sigh).

Even more stressful are the scenes of absolute panic, shown in flashback, of a desperate city trying to evacuate "the island" as the virus spreads. Um, does anyone else remember a certain day in September not too long ago when it was announced Manhattan was being shut down? Does it really seem that far-fetched anymore to see fighter planes blow up the Brooklyn Bridge?

Holiday Bonus Time: Apparently the pandemic reached its zenith during the Christmas season, and bright twinkly lights adorn the city streets as people run screaming for an exit.

Three years later, Will Smith prowls for food and distraction through an echoingly empty city that's still adorned with dulled and dingy Christmas decorations from auld lang syne. Oh come on, Warner Brothers! Like the holidays aren't hard enough.

We love that our local newscasters get to pop up in these big budget films (Hi, Roma Torre!), but listening to these familiar faces give the apocalyptic news doesn't feel quite fantastical ... it just feels creepily right somehow. Deep down, don't you know the first to broadcast the news of Manhattan being overtaken by killer bees or a new strain of the measles will be NY1's Pat Kiernan?

Isn't it time to give Boston a turn? What's Philly up to these days? Let's give that Liberty Bell a whack. Or better yet, watch the Hollywood sign tumble down from the hills.

We all know how powerful China is becoming, but powerful enough to deflate the ego of one of Hollywood’s most sought-after leading men? This morning brought the news that China has yet to green-light Will Smith’s latest blockbusting effort, I Am Legend, which opens here on December 14. The apparent snub comes loosely attached to a report that the nation of 1,321,851,888 citizens plans to block all American movies, hoping to boost its own budding film industry. (Let’s also not forget that I Am Legend basically equates populous areas with violence and death; the only haven of solace is found in pastoral Vermont.) “We struggled very, very hard to try to get it to work out, but there are only a certain amount of foreign films that are allowed in,” Mr. Smith told reporters in Hong Kong today.

Poor guy can’t get a break. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Mr. Smith, 39, admits to being insecure. When he was 15, his first girlfriend broke his heart. “[I]t destroyed my concept of myself,” he told the Wenner music book, adding: “I [thought I] wasn’t good enough.” He then recalls a certain look his grandmother once gave him, the look of someone who’s proud. It affected him to such a degree that he now needs to find it in the faces of all the women in his life—namely, in that of his lovely wife, Jada Pinkett. “Every singe day Jada must have the look. I can’t function if she doesn’t have that look in her eyes.” Ms. Pinkett’s proud-look is probably awesome, but we’d most like to see the look on his first girlfriend’s face when she saw The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for the first time.