The post-apocalyptic blockbuster starring Will Smith, I Am Legend, has undergone several endings, and each choice created big problems…
We’re getting used to franchises that cherry-pick only what suits them from previous installments, even to the point of glossing over large chunks of canon (on this front, Alien and Terminator pair up for this). I Am Legend raises the stakes with a few tricks, discarding the ending everyone knows in favor of another that only appears in the DVD bonus material.
The apocalyptic blockbuster from Francis Lawrence captivated audiences in 2007 thanks to Will Smith’s charisma as the last man standing against the invaders, as well as to the spectacular visions of a New York highway choked with vegetation. The idea of giving it a sequel seemed odd given its fairly definitive ending, but the producers clearly weren’t afraid of ridicule…
The End Suppressed for Profit
The novel by Richard Matheson is a source whose richness is matched only by its nihilism. Of course, the 2007 audience isn’t discovering the bleak themes of post-apocalyptic fiction for the first time—28 Days Later had already created a buzz a few years earlier in a similar niche. The problem is that its ending offers neither a true happy ending nor an easy catharsis: the hero Robert Neville dies realizing he has become a relic of a humanity that has run its course, and that he must cede his place to this new, intelligent species capable of forming a society.
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