How Will Smith spoiled the ending to ‘I Am Legend’
It’s not a spoiler to say Will Smith dies at the end of I Am Legend, considering the post-apocalyptic epic released over a decade and a half ago, not that it matters anyway when it’s being completely ignored for the sequel.
For the first hour, Francis Lawrence’s blockbuster is a unique beast, with Smith shouldering the entire burden of telling a story as the only human character in a ravaged New York City. It’s stark, sparse, atmospheric, and intense up to a certain point, and then the poorly rendered CGI creatures appear and shatter any immersion or belief the standard action movie shenanigans would be downplayed.
Richard Matheson’s novel has a fantastic ending, one that recontextualises everything that came before. Through Robert Neville’s eyes, he’s been capturing and experimenting on the infected to try and find a cure that could save humanity. Still, from their perspective, he’s a mythical bogeyman who captures and kills them for no discernible reason.
Maybe because the prospect of Smith being painted as even a theoretical villain didn’t fly, his Neville opted to blow himself up instead. The star very rarely dies on-screen, but for anyone paying attention to his comments on the press tour, it wouldn’t have come as a surprise.
Producer and writer Akiva Goldsman warned him not to drop a bombshell on those in attendance, but he went ahead and did it anyway, confirming that he wouldn’t be making it to the end credits in one piece. Fortunately, his comments came in front of a Japanese audience before the social media explosion, so having I Am Legend ruined before catching it on the big screen was a fairly easy issue to avoid.
It did nothing to dampen its earning power, either, with the film earning a hefty $585million at the box office. There was an alternate ending released on home video that told a different story, which finds Neville realising the errors of his ways. At that moment, he becomes struck by the realisation that he’s become a monster in the eyes of the Darkseekers, forcing him to change his approach to safeguarding the future when he pitches up at a survivors’ colony.
Naturally, questions were raised as to how exactly Smith would be returning to co-star with Michael B. Jordan in the sequel. This was handily explained by what might be the first case of a movie that earned north of half a billion dollars from cinema actively disavowing its own ending in favour of the DVD special features.
“You have to be a real I Am Legend buff to know this, but in the first, theatrical version, my character dies, but on the DVD, there was an alternate version of the ending where my character lived,” Smith explained per Variety. “We are going with the mythology of the DVD version. I can’t tell you anything more, but Michael B. Jordan is in.” That’s a new one, but Smith’s initial spoilers don’t even matter when the follow-up isn’t even paying attention.
