Eighteen years ago, the I Am Legend movie made a frustrating change from the original novel, but the upcoming I Am Legend 2 can set things right. Overall, the 2007 movie was a fair success. Will Smith’s performance was excellent, and the idea of a reclaimed-by-nature New York City was thrilling to see on screen. However, I Am Legend was essentially nothing like the book it was based on. Sure, the movie featured a post-apocalyptic world where a man named Robert Neville seemed to be the last man standing, but just about everything else was changed.

Interestingly, the alternate ending of I Am Legend was just a tad closer to Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel. This version saw Smith’s Robert Neville realize that the monsters he had been experimenting on and killing (called Darkseekers in the movie) were capable of love and community. This completely changed the way he thought about his place on the planet. The upcoming I Am Legend 2 will follow the first movie’s alternate ending rather than the theatrical cut, so the sequel has a better chance of aligning with the book. This potentially means correcting a frustrating Darkseekers mistake.

I Am Legend 2 Can Portray The Darkseekers More Like Vampires Than Zombies

The Sequel Can Fix A Mᴀssive Book Change

In 2007’sI Am Legend, Smith’s character essentially lived in a zombie apocalypse. In Matheson’s book, however, the Krippin Virus created monsters more like vampires than zombies. When infected people died, the illness caused their corpses to be reanimated like zombies. However, these mindless monsters weren’t the primary problem. Neville’s central enemies were those who had survived the Krippin Virus. They weren’t deteriorating corpses but blood-thirsty monsters who remained a touch more sophisticated.

As frustrating as I Am Legend‘s zombie Darkseeker change was, the alternate ending at least came with the reveal that these monsters weren’t mindless. Neville came to the same realization he had in the book that the creatures he had been killing were capable of community and love, which meant he was the monster in their eyes. With I Am Legend 2 picking up some decades after the first movie, we could potentially see the more vampire-like versions of the first movie’s Darkseekers. We already saw they could be more sophisticated. With some time to evolve, this could be taken to a level more similar to that of the book.

Why I Am Legend Changed The Darkseekers From “Vampires” To “Zombies”

The 2007 Movie Fit With The Trends

It’s difficult to say precisely why the creatives behind 2007’s I Am Legend decided to make the movie a zombie flick rather than a vampire movie. However, we can guess that it had something to do with the trends of the time. Zombie apocalypses were all the rage in the late 2000s and early 2010s, so it was likely ᴀssumed that zombie-like Darkseekers would perform better. Vampires were largely reserved for dark romances, which wasn’t the angle the I Am Legend movie chose to take. Still, we can’t deny that the Darkseekers in the movie are more like a bizarre combination of zombies and vampires.

Though the beasts of I Am Legend behave like zombies, the fact that they burn in the sun aligns more with the standard vampire tropes. Additionally, presenting the Darkseekers in this way made the alternate ending a bit more effective, since zombies are typically seen as mindless monsters incapable of strategy, society, and emotion. Even in the theatrical cut, Neville slowly realized there was more to these monsters than he had initially believed. The change from vampire to zombie was still a bit annoying, but the opportunity is now there to pay this off with a far more interesting I Am Legend sequel.

I Am Legend’s Alternate Ending Showed That The Darkseekers Were Intelligent After All

It Will Be Interesting To See How They Have Evolved Since

The ending of I Am Legend‘s theatrical cut left no room for a continued story. Robert Neville died, and Anna escaped to a settlement to pᴀss on the cure he had discovered. This was a zombie apocalypse flick through and through—not much more to add. However, the alternate ending of I Am Legend established a far more complex and interesting story. Neville was forced to confront the fact that, to the Darkseekers, he was the monster. He was killing their kind, and it became necessary for him to accept that these beings had inherited the Earth and he needed to step out of the way.

Of course, I Am Legend‘s multiple endings meant there wasn’t much room to flesh out this idea. We hardly saw the sophisticated, vampire-like monsters. Now, I Am Legend 2 can carry this story forward. The Darkseekers in the sequel will likely be more evolved. These may be a more traditional version of vampires, pale, but still recognizably humanoid. So, while the first I Am Legend movie took on the idea of the last man on Earth, I Am Legend 2 can tackle some themes on morality, fully exploring what it actually means to be human.