Marketed as a Superman story, what happens at the end of Brightburn says otherwise
The trailer for Brightburn (2019) told you exactly what you were getting — a Superman origin story played as horror — and then the final 20 minutes proved it meant every word.
This isn't a story about a boy who learns to be good. It's about what happens when he doesn't.
Here's how it ends, and what the credits hint at.
The setup
Brandon Breyer (Jackson A. Dunn) crash-lands near a Kansas farm as an infant and is adopted by Tori (Elizabeth Banks) and Kyle (David Denman), a couple unable to have children. For 12 years, everything tracks with the Superman blueprint: small town, loving parents, normal kid. Then his alien ship — hidden in the barn — starts calling to him, and his superpowers emerge alongside something far darker.
Early in the film, a classroom scene lays it out. Brandon is asked to explain the difference between bees and wasps. His answer: wasps are predators, programmed to hunt. By the third act, that metaphor has teeth.
How it ends
The final act moves fast:
- Kyle takes Brandon into the woods and tries to shoot him. Brandon is bulletproof. He burns his father alive with his laser eyes.
- Tori discovers Brandon's notebook — filled with gruesome drawings of every person he's killed. She grabs a shard from his alien ship, the one material that can hurt him, and tries to stab him.
- Brandon lifts his mother into the sky. For a moment, she reaches him. She tells him she loves him. Then he lets go.
Brandon destroys a passenger plane overhead and uses the wreckage to stage the scene, burying his parents' deaths under the crash. The authorities never suspect the 12-year-old boy who survived.
The inversion
The closing montage is news footage. A masked figure — dubbed "Brightburn" after his Kansas hometown — is destroying buildings, causing mass casualties, and vanishing. His identity remains unknown to the public.
The moment that seals it: in Richard Donner's Superman (1978), Clark Kent saves a falling plane. In Brightburn, Brandon destroys one. Same origin story, opposite destination.
During the credits, a conspiracy theorist played by Michael Rooker rants about other superpowered beings:
- A half-man, half-sea creature — terrorising the oceans.
- A woman who chokes victims with rope — hinted to be a dark take on Wonder Woman.
- The Crimson Bolt — a brief flash of Rainn Wilson's character from James Gunn's earlier film Super, suggesting a shared universe.
An evil Justice League, sketched in broad strokes. None of it has materialised in a sequel.
Will there be a sequel?
Producer James Gunn said in 2019 that discussions were happening, but he was busy directing for DC. Director David Yarovesky has said any continuation would arrive without warning. As of 2026, nothing has been announced, though the film's $33.2 million worldwide gross on a modest budget left the door open.
For the record: Jackson A. Dunn also appeared briefly in Avengers: Endgame as a young Scott Lang. The kid who played evil Superman also played baby Ant-Man. Small universe.