Hollywood Desperation: An I Am Legend Sequel with Will Smith?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0muvixSrd0

From Deadline.Com via Movies with Butter:

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros has closed deals with Akiva Goldsman and Overbrook Entertainment to do another installment of I Am Legend,the 2007 hit film. The intention is for Will Smith to reprise his role as scientist Robert Neville, who was the last man on earth doing battle with a mutated mob in New York City after an apocalyptic man-made virus wiped out the population.

[snip]

The other quandary is this: if it isn’t a prequel, how to get past Smith’s character’s demise at the first film’s end? These of course are semantics in the tent pole game. Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures are casting a continuation of 300, another hit film where all the major characters croaked.

Come on! Is it that hard to just write a new script with Will Smith as a post-apocalyptic action hero? Is it really necessary to spoil I Am Legend with a reheated regurgitation?