In 2008, Warner Bros. released a Two-Disc Special Edition DVD of "I Am Legend," featuring a never-before-seen alternate ending that significantly changed the story and overarching themes. In Neville's final faceoff with the alpha Darkseeker, the zombified antagonist smudges a butterfly into the glass, matching the tattoo of his captured Darkseeker mate. Suddenly, Neville is able to recognize the creatures' humanity, and he opens the glass partition to free the cured Darkseeker.
He looks over to the photos of countless Darkseekers who didn't survive his treatment, and it clicks: in the eyes of the Darkseekers, he's the monster who's been plaguing their community. Instead of Neville sacrificing himself to preserve the cure, he drives to Vermont with Anna (Alice Braga) and Ethan (Charlie Tahan), content with the fundamental, if unknowable, shift in life on Earth as he knows it.
The new material left the Reddit masses and critics alike to reassess the 2007 film. In the buzzing subreddit r/movies, u/vespera23 posited that the alternate ending was superior, and wondered if other fans felt the same way. Other redditors overwhelmingly agreed, noting that the unreleased version hewed more closely to Matheson's original novel. "I would think the movie would have been much better if they chose the ending that the title of the book and film came from," a since-deleted user chimed in. Indeed, the book ends with Neville's realization that he is, in a sense, a boogeyman to be feared by the dominant population. "[I am] a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever," Matheson concludes his book. "I am legend."
