Brightburn

Brightburn is a 2019 American superhero horror film produced by James Gunn and Kenneth Huang, and directed by David Yarovesky. It stars Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, Jackson A. Dunn, Matt Jones, and Meredith Hagner, and follows a young alien boy raised on Earth who realizes he has superpowers, soon using them to terrorize his town. The film is produced and financed by Screen Gems, Stage 6 Films, Troll Court Entertainment, and The H Collective.

Brightburn was announced as Untitled James Gunn Horror Project in December 2017. Aside from Gunn producing the film, his cousin Mark and brother Brian Gunn wrote the screenplay. Principal photography began in March 2018 and wrapped in May of that same year.

Brightburn was released in the United States on May 24, 2019 by Sony Pictures Releasing. The film received mixed reviews, with critics praising the horror elements and Banks' performance, though they felt the film did not fully deliver on its premise.

Plot
In 2006, Tori and Kyle Breyer (Elizabeth Banks and David Denman) are a farm couple living in Brightburn, Kansas. The two are trying to have a child, but have failed to conceive due to infertility issues. One night, a spaceship falls from the sky near their farm with a baby boy inside. Upon finding him, the couple decide to adopt him as their own, naming him Brandon.

Twelve years later, Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn) discovers that he has a significant degree of invulnerability after hearing strange voices and plunging his hand into a running lawnmower blade without hurting himself. That same night, Brandon sleepwalks to the farmhouse, trying to open a trapdoor which contains the spaceship that brought him to Earth. Tori intervenes and wakes him, with Brandon appearing delirious.

After this, Brandon grows more disobedient and disrespectful towards Tori and Kyle. To his father's surprise, Brandon chews a fork with his own teeth, damaging it. Kyle begins to suspect that something has become wrong with Brandon.

While cleaning out Brandon’s room, Tori finds strange and disturbing drawings in his notebook, leading Kyle to talk with Brandon about puberty and girls. That night, Brandon goes to the house of his classmate Caitlyn (Emmie Hunter), staring at her through a window until she notices him. The next night, Kyle discovers that their chickens have been slaughtered. Tori suggests that it was a wolf attack, but Kyle insists that Brandon is responsible.

The next morning at school, students do a trust fall exercise, but Brandon falls because Caitlyn does not want to touch him. She calls him a pervert for spying on her; Brandon breaks Caitlyn's hand in retaliation. The school’s principal suspends Brandon for two days, reporting to his aunt Merilee (Meredith Hagner) for counselling afterwards.

Later, Tori finds her son levitating above the open trapdoor containing the hidden spaceship, repeating the phrase "take the world" in an alien language. Her arrival interrupts him. He falls and cuts himself against a metal edge of the ship - the only time she has known him to be injured. Tori then reveals the truth to him about his birth, but despite her coaxing, Brandon leaves in a rage, unleashing laser eyes to let out his frustration.

Brandon visits Caitlyn, who tells him that her mother has forbidden her from talking to him. Furious, a masked Brandon murders her mother in the town’s diner.

Later in a counseling session at school, Merilee becomes concerned because of Brandon's lack of remorse and tells Brandon she has to make her report to the police. Brandon appears at her home that evening unannounced to intimidate her into not reporting her concerns to them.

Merilee's husband Noah (Matt Jones) finds Brandon hiding in the closet and decides to tell his parents. Brandon dons his mask again and attacks Noah. Noah escapes in his car but Brandon kills him by wrecking his car.

Tori and Kyle learn of Noah's death and are alarmed when Brandon does not emotionally react to the news. As Kyle angrily grabs Brandon’s arm and accuses him of lying, Brandon violently propels Kyle through their kitchen wall. Despite trying to explain the situation to Tori, it causes a schism on their relationship.

Realizing that Brandon must die in order to prevent him from abusing his powers further, Kyle plans a hunting trip with the intention of killing Brandon. Kyle reminds Tori that the hunting trip will show Brandon how much he is loved. While in a secluded, wooded area, Kyle shoots Brandon in the back of the head only to have the bullet bounce off, leaving Brandon unharmed. Outraged at his father’s betrayal, Brandon uses his laser vision to burn through Kyle's eyes, killing him.

Meanwhile, Tori finds drawings depicting the various murders in Brandon's room. Finally understanding the extent of Brandon’s depravity and involvement in the recent deaths, Tori frantically attempts to reach her husband only for Brandon to answer his phone and inform her that Kyle is dead.

Brandon returns home and begins destroying the house. Tori manages to get a 911 call out to local authorities. Brandon brutally murders the two responding officers before searching for his mother. Escaping through a bedroom window, an injured Tori limps down to the barn where the spaceship is, arming herself with a sharp piece of the alien ship to use as a shiv.

Brandon finds Tori, who tries to calm him down. Tori assures Brandon that she still loves him, confident he is still normal. Brandon tells Tori that he wants to do good. Once they embrace, Tori tries to stab him but fails. Enraged by her betrayal, Brandon lifts Tori above the clouds and drops her to her death as a plane flies towards him. Brandon purposely crashes the plane into the farm, in turn, killing everyone onboard.

In the aftermath, news reports about the deaths of Brandon's parents and his other victims are attributed to the crash. Final reports shows Brandon, nicknamed "Brightburn" by the media after the city, wreaking havoc to it, destroying an office building, setting forests ablaze and killing numerous people. Meanwhile, a conspiracy theorist blogger named The Big T (Michael Rooker) reports about a half-man, half-sea creature sinking ships in the South China Sea, a figure in red, and a supernatural woman choking people with rope and compelling them to tell the truth, linking them with Brightburn and saying that these super-powered beings are out on Earth.

Cast

 * Elizabeth Banks as Tori Breyer
 * David Denman as Kyle Breyer
 * Jackson A. Dunn as Brandon Breyer / Brightburn
 * Matt Jones as Noah McNichol
 * Meredith Hagner as Merilee McNichol
 * Steve Agee as EJ
 * Becky Wahlstrom as Erica
 * Emmie Hunter as Caitlyn
 * Stephen Blackehart as Travis
 * Gregory Alan Williams as Chief Deputy Deever
 * Jennifer Holland as Ms. Espenschied
 * Elizabeth Becka as Principal
 * Christian Finlayson as Fauxhawk
 * Terence Rosemore as P.E. Teacher
 * Anne Humphrey as Deputy Aryes
 * Michael Rooker as The Big T

Rainn Wilson cameos in a photograph as Crimson Bolt.

Production
The film was announced in December 2017, then untitled, with James Gunn as a producer, his brother Brian and cousin Mark writing the script, and David Yarovesky directing. In March 2018, Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, Jackson A. Dunn, Meredith Hagner and Matt Jones were cast. Principal photography began the same month, and wrapped in May of the same year.

Marketing
There were plans to promote the film at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con in July, but it was pulled at the last minute in the wake of James Gunn's removal from Walt Disney Studios and Marvel Studios, only for Disney and Marvel to reconcile with Gunn nine months later. On December 8, 2018, the first trailer for Brightburn was released online.

Critics viewed the trailer as an "Ultraman horror movie" due to the intentional similarities to Superman's origin story and as a deconstruction of the character. Fast Company stated that "although it's not officially a Superman movie, it walks viewers through every step of Clark Kent's origin story before taking a hard left turn."

Release
Brightburn was released in the United States on May 24, 2019. It was originally scheduled for November 30, 2018.

Box office
, Brightburn has grossed $9.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $7.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $17.3 million.

In the United States and Canada, Brightburn was released alongside Aladdin and Booksmart, and was projected to gross around $12–16 million from 2,607 theaters in its four-day opening weekend. The film made $3 million on its first day, including $950,000 from Thursday night previews. It ended up underperforming, debuting to $7.5 million for three days and finishing in fifth.

Critical response
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 57% based on 111 reviews, with an average rating of 5.68/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Although Brightburn doesn't fully deliver on the pitch-black promise of its setup, it's still enough to offer a diverting subversion of the superhero genre." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 45 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it 2.5 out of 5 stars and a "definite recommend" of 39%.

Possible sequels
In May 2019, director David Yarovesky said that if the film is a success, the filmmakers would expand on the universe of Brightburn. He stated that the film's mid-credits scene, making reference to a half-man/half-sea creature terrorizing the seas, Rainn Wilson's character Frank Darbo / The Crimson Bolt from Super, and a powerful witch who chokes her victims with a rope that compels them to the tell the truth, was intended to set up a sequel. In addition, he said that an alternate ending to the film featured Emmie Hunter's “Caitlyn — [ending] with her in a lab fastening a robot arm on her broken arm, and her just pissed off," and mentioned “tons” of other such endings as having been discussed, noting that “[i]f we were to expand the Brightburn universe in other installments and in other ways, we would probably be doing it in the exact same way, in total secrecy and then drop a cinematic trailer at some point that kind of teaches [one] what that new direction may be.”