8 Movies That Stupidly Scrapped Perfect Endings

8. I Am Legend

If there's one superior alternate ending that has been spoken about at great length over the years, it's the one left behind by I Am Legend. Adapted from a novel that largely follows the same structure, it's the film's closing act that decides to take a different take on the source material - throwing away what would have been a far more nuanced and impressive ending to a blockbuster in the process.

The story depicts Will Smith as one of the last men standing after a plague has wiped out humanity as we know it, working tirelessly each day attempting to distil a cure that will end the race of crazy vampires - aka darkseekers - has sprung up in the darkest corners of the city. To do this, he captures and experiments on infected patients, eventually getting a blood sample that contains the antidote before blowing his laboratory to the high heavens defending it from the vengeful darkseekers. That's all well and good, but what was supposed to happen in the original cut gave the plot far more intrigue than this simple action packed ending.

Instead, Smith would face off against one of the big bad infected in his laboratory as usual - only the darkseeker would be searching for his mate being experimented on and signal her butterfly tattoo. Smith would recognise that they're far more intelligent than he'd given them credit for and that his work has been traumatising their society, the titular legend being of his boogeyman status to these people rather than that of his antidote.

It would've made their struggle far more complex than simple good versus bad as the overarching theme, but the studio opted for a more easily packaged finale. Shame.