Continuing the promotion of his Apple TV+ series “The Crowded Room” starring Tom Holland and Amanda Seyfried, series creator Akiva Goldsman spoke with The Playlist about his other projects in the works.
Two titles he’s attached to write are two high-profile sequels for his 2007 feature “I Am Legend” starring Will Smith, and the Keanu Reeves-led 2005 film “Constantine”.
With the writer’s strike on Goldsman couldn’t say much as everything is on hold, but he was able to confirm those sequels are still happening and are next on his agenda once the strike is over:
“My pens are down, so there’s nothing to do. But, yeah, those are the next things I’m writing when I’m allowed to write again. And I had already begun ‘[I Am] Legend 2’ when we [started striking], and Francis [Lawrence], Keanu [Reeves], and I have broken ‘Constantine 2.’ I just haven’t started typing yet.”
Goldsman also touched upon comments from his “Crowded Room” star Tom Holland who stars as a young man arrested for a violent crime in 1970’s Manhattan. A complex case soon arises from the accused man’s unique condition.
The show has been met with poor reviews, and Holland has spoken about the stress he was under during production, which partly led to him taking a one-year break from acting. Goldsman explains why it was so stressful:
“What was, I think, gruelling was not actually the work, but the volume of work compared to the volume of work one does in a feature. Because you must remember that we shot about 127 days for 10 hours of material.
A Marvel movie shoots about 127 days for 2 hours of material, so the number of scenes you’re rocking through in a given day is just more pages every day on television. And they’re not easier. There are just more of them.
You’ve got to live in that character he created for a really long time, and there’s no respite. No green screen moments. There’s no, ‘And now we’ll have the Digi-double swing from the roof.’ It’s all Tom all the time.”
“The Crowded Room” is currently streaming on Apple TV+ with several episodes to go. The “Constantine” and “I Am Legend” sequels don’t have release dates as yet.
