Elizabeth Banks' super-powered son completely misunderstands the idea of "being good" in the final trailer for Brightburn. The upcoming thriller brings James Gunn back to his roots in horror, and is cut from the same cloth as his previous scripts for movies like Dawn of the Dead and The Belko Experiment. Brightburn, which Gunn produced and developed with his brother Brian and cousin Mark (who co-wrote the screenplay), is also a dark re-imagining of the Superman mythology that asks a simple question: what if a young Clark Kent decided he wasn't all that interested in becoming humanity's protector? The answer, as you might imagine, is pretty terrifying.

The first Brightburn trailer played up the film's connection to the Superman mythos and even paid homage to Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, before taking a turn for the horrifying in its second half. Sony's subsequent marketing has leaned heavier on the movie's horror elements, but without losing sight of its superhero bonafides in the process. That's once again the case with the final trailer, which has dropped online in time to give the film a final push ahead of its release in theaters Thursday evening.

Bloody Disgusting has the exclusive on the final Brightburn trailer, as you can see in the space below. This is the movie's fourth preview overall, including the previous theatrical trailers and the extended promo (which Gunn released back in March).


The final trailer skips over exploring how Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn) - an alien who crash-lands on earth and is raised as a human by childless couple Tori (Banks) and Kyle (David Denman) - becomes Brightburn, and jumps ahead to the dark superhero wreaking havoc on his small town and adopted parents in the film. The approach makes sense, seeing as the "What if Superman grew up to be evil?" angle is a bit played out at this point in the movie's promotional campaign. At the same time, the trailer once again emphasizes Brightburn's ties to the Superman franchise with its text (which is done is the same metallic font used in Man of Steel's promos). Naturally, Sony doesn't want anybody to forget this is both a superhero film and a horror-thriller.

Much like he did on Belko Experiment, Gunn handed the reins on Brightburn off to a lesser known director, this time in the form of David Yarovesky (The Hive). The duo previously worked together on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2's "Inferno" music video and the Belko VR: An Escape Room Experiment video game, so the film represents a natural progression in their ongoing series of collaborations. Whether it lives up to its potential on paper or ends up being one of those ideas that's more interesting in concept than execution - that's another matter.

Brightburn (2019) release date: May 24, 2019