15 Sci-Fi Movie Endings That Would Have Changed Everything

6. I Am Legend (2007)

Based on Richard Matheson’s ‘50s sci-fi horror novel, Francis Lawrence’s I Am Legend punts Will Smith into the midst of a zombie(-ish) ravaged New York City, where it’s just him and his dog struggling to survive.

Smith is Doctor Robert Neville, a US army virologist who finds himself the sole human inhabitant of Manhattan after a virus that was supposed to cure cancer wiped out the species. Locking himself in at night and curling up with his German shepherd Sam in the tub, Robert hides from the nocturnal mutant “Darkseekers” that hunt the streets at night – the section of the population who survived the virus, if only technically.

Human survivors Anna and Ethan (Alice Braga and Charlie Tahan) give Robert hope for a new future, and his trials with a Darkseeker subject prove fruitful. After working for years on a solution, Robert manages to cure one of the Darkseekers, but her companions descend on his home, and the theatrical version of the film has him sacrifice himself to save Anna and Ethan and preserve the cure.

The alternate ending, however, turns the tables, allowing Robert to survive, but revealing that the Darkseekers are actually intelligent beings whose interest is self-preservation against Robert, who has been hunting and experimenting on them. But nobody wanted to see Will Smith as the villain of his own story.