Butterfly in my stomach: I Am Legend's Alternate (and Original) Ending

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This gives a whole new meaning to "the butterfly effect."

First, in the official ending that the studio producers decided to go with, the leader of the infected (I'm just going out on a limb here and call him Cortman. Poor thing didn't even get a name) smashed the glass so hard patterns of butterfly wings appeared. This triggered a piece of Neville's memory, specifically the one with his kid babbling about butterfly years ago in his car during evacuation. Ultimately the butterfly wings act as a premonition sign for Neville, telling him that there was indeed a God's plan. And in that plan, God sent Anna to Neville to get the cure and save the world.

While the official ending did manage to portray Neville, in my opinion, as a legend in the truest sense of the word (in my previous entry I talked about how Neville's talking to himself with big words and arguments undermined his legacy), what the film left out was perhaps the entire meat of the novel: the infected did show  humane and communal characteristics and they had in fact developed a society for themselves. What's even more odd is that even though these signs were hinted throughout the film too (the trap, for one, and that one time Cortman was so mad at Neville he practically bathed in the sun), the studio still wanted to have no blurred lines between the solo hero and brainless mob. And so for those who saw the film but didn't see the novel, poor old Cortman looked like a big angry man-child with absolutely zero moral and mental compass when someone stole his girl (if constant headbanging against the wall doesn't give off the mentally unstable vibe, I don't know what does).

So what about this alternate ending? Not only would Neville get to actually live, which is a major check plus compared to the novel for those who love him, he would still become a legend for both the injected and the human refugees. Also, this would leave God and superstition aside a bit, just like the novel. And to think that a few years down the road he and Cortman could look back at this and laugh ("Hey man remember that one time you kidnapped my girlfriend and used her to save the world?" "Yeah that was pretty rad"), I completely gave up on my hope to understand why the studio would say no to this ending. So I did some research and as it turned out, the studio dropped the N-bomb on this one because a certain test audience did not like it. So yes, money talked.

To enjoy and favor a brief moment of heroic martyrdom over the ceaseless reverberation, albeit less action-packed, of silent utilitarianism is one thing. But to be afraid of taking a chance to stay true to the novel (and perhaps to supersede it) both despite and because of money being the limiting factor is, I dare say, a sign of weakness in disguised. Facade, facade everywhere.