Will Smith Reveals the Real Reason I Am Legend’s Original Ending Was Rewritten

Will Smith finally explained why the original ending of 2007's I Am Legend got tossed, and it came down to a brutal test screening that went sideways fast. Fans have known about the darker, more book-accurate ending for years; turns out, that was supposed to be the ending. Until a room full of people booed.

The ending they planned vs. the ending you saw

• The one they shot first leaned closer to Richard Matheson's novel: Neville realizes the Darkseekers have their own order and are trying to get one of their own back. He has an oh-no moment, understands that to them he is the monster, and lets them go.
• The theatrical cut flips that: Neville hands Anna (Alice Braga) the cure, sacrifices himself with a grenade, and clears a path for her and her son to survive.

What broke the original ending

Smith says the film's test screening drew a couple hundred people and those classic feedback cards with five boxes: excellent, very good, good, poor, very poor. When the dust settled, only 51% checked the top two boxes. For him, that was a career low.

'It was the only movie I’ve ever had that the audience booed.'

He also recalls the crowd revolting at the idea that Neville might be the real terror of the story. Subtle philosophical gut-punch? Not on that night.

'Across the board, they were like 'The ending is bulls---' ... 'We didn’t watch this whole movie to figure out that you’re the monster... No, they’re the monsters.''

The scramble to change course

After that screening, the team swapped out the original conclusion for the hero-martyr version and went back to shoot new material six weeks before release. It is a very last-minute reversal for a studio thriller, and a pretty telling one: the movie that hit theaters delivered a cleaner, punchier final beat, and the thornier idea stayed in the vault as an alternate cut.