Among the many things I Am Legend cries out for -- scarier creatures, a more resonant third act -- a sequel is not among them.

But then that's just us.

And maybe if we ran Warner Bros. we'd be salivating over Legend's $240-million gross (so far) and planning We Are Legend, too.

So far, the studio has secured sequel rights and purportedly commissioned a script. What's not known is whether or not Will Smith will be involved (or how he could be, given the first film) but if he is, it could be years before Robert Neville returns to theatres.

Why? Smith, to understate things, is the world's biggest movie star -- the one actor guaranteed to put arses in seats -- and is therefore more in demand than ever.

Case in point: This July he stars in Hancock, produced by Michael Mann, who directed Smith to an Oscar nomination for Ali. The former Fresh Prince calls the comedy "the Michael Mann version of an alcoholic superhero. It's so bizarre. Michael Mann developed this script about an alcoholic superhero. Jason Bateman plays a publicist and I save his life so he starts to rehabilitate me in the eyes of the public."

Then in March -- or whenever the writers strike ends -- he'll shoot the drama Seven Pounds for his Pursuit of Happyness director Gabriele Muccino. And after that, he will re-team with Mann for a drama called Empire about a modern-age media mogul.

Yet for all his success, he says it's no coincidence he keeps working with Mann and Muccino. "Gabriele has a wonderful insight on who I am and how to get the best out of me ... You know how some people you can't pull tricks on -- they see right to the heart of who you are and what you're feeling? That's the relationship I have with those guys."

BURTON IN WONDERLAND: Legendary producer Richard Zanuck isn't kidding when he says if you want something from Tim Burton, you have to go through him.

Fr'instance, as his Sweeney Todd gets fluffed for awards season (including today's lower-key Golden Globes), Burton is cagey about rumours that his next project will be a dark adaptation of Alice In Wonderland.

What does he have to say about it? "Nothing, it's a great book, nice dresses, whatever," Burton says.

His producer, however, is more forthcoming.

"I'm pretty sure that's his next movie and I'm going to be on that with him," says the 74-year-old Zanuck in a separate interview. "We haven't started doing anything yet, but there's a script already written and ready to go," he says, referencing the Writers Guild strike.

Burton and Zanuck have been a team since Planet of the Apes (an ironic pairing because Zanuck greenlit the original Charlton Heston movie when he was head of Fox in the '60s.).

"I will say this," says Zanuck, "Of all the directors I've worked with, John Huston, George Cukor, George Roy Hill, Willie Wyler, there's no one who's given me more pleasure to watch than Tim. He's so visual and so instinctive.

"Many times during the shooting of all the pictures we've done together, when we're about to start a new scene, I've put myself to sleep trying to imagine how he will visually attack that scene. And I've never been right. He always surprises me the next morning."

ABRAMS, ABRAMS, EVERYWHERE: What we want to know is, when does J.J. Abrams sleep?

Abrams is famously busy at the moment directing the new Star Trek movie, which picks up the Trek canon from Kirk's and Spock's Starfleet Academy days.

But he's also listed as director of The Fringe, a TV pilot being shot in Toronto for the Fox Network later this month about a research scientist and an FBI agent who encounter paranormal events. And no, their names are not Mulder and Scully.