10 Terrible Movie Moments The Directors Didn't Even Want

As opposed to many of the other entries on this list, in this case the change from the director's intended vision didn't initially come from the studio, but rather test audiences. I Am Legend was proving to be a decent adaptation of the Richard Matheson novella, impressively keeping the audience engaged despite focusing on only one human character and his dog amongst the post-apocalyptic aftermath.

That is until the final moments of the theatrical cut, where Will Smith's Robert Neville decides to go all action-cliche and sacrifices himself so that the cure he made for the apocalypse-causing epidemic gets out to the surviving population. This was a far cry from how director Francis Lawrence wanted it to finish, which was much more in line with the source material. In the original ending, Neville realises the creatures he was antagonising throughout were actually sentient beings with human emotion rather than mindless animals, making him the real villain of the story.

But alas, this darker ending tested poorly, causing the change. Not only did the cinematic cut deny us of a much more interesting conclusion, questioning what humanity really looks like, but the hints foreshadowing the original twist now lead nowhere. No wonder it became a cautionary tale against malfunctioning test audiences.