(Warning: Spoilers ahead for Brightburn!)
Those that have seen Brightburn already know that it’s from a typical superhero tale. It follows young Brandon Breyer as he grows into a young boy, adapting to his mysterious superpowers…and then using them for evil. This eventually leads to an ending where both of his adoptive parents meet their deaths, and he begins to take over the world.
In an interview with Collider, director David Yarovesky talks about the dark turn that the film’s ending takes. Following the killing of his mother and the devastation of a commuter plane, Brandon sets his plan in motion. He devastates his hometown and then moves on, ready to “take the world.”
“If this was going to be the anti-superhero movie, it would have to crush your hope and kick you in the teeth when you didn’t expect it,” said Yarovesky. “The hardest part was the one because sometimes it got too funny and it didn’t feel like the movie, sometimes it got too bleak and it didn’t feel like the movie. The movie really is having fun with the bad guy.”
But it’s what follows during the credits where things get interesting. Hints suggest that Brandon may not be the only anti-hero out there.
“The moment with Elizabeth (dying) was basically always in it, but everything that followed changed a thousand times, how much do we want to show of the next steps? Through what lens do we want to learn it? There were all sorts of ways in. The best way was to just give a picture of the future and be a little more vague.”
The post credits suggest that dark versions of Aquaman and Wonder Woman exist in this world. This comes via explanation from a conspiracy theorist, played by longtime James Gunn collaborator Michael Rooker. Yarovesky and the team had fun writing out a number of possibilities for characters within this universe, even if they didn’t make the final cut.
Related: Brightburn Reviews — What Did You Think?
“We talked about Caitlyn – it ends with her in a lab fastening a robot arm on her broken arm, and her just pissed off,” he said about a potential Cyborg character. “We just bounced around ideas for hours and some of them were ridiculous and some of them were cool, like that.”
Yarovesky and company have plans for what could happen next, if the opportunity is there. That’s a pretty big if, however. Over the Memorial Day weekend, the film only made $9 million at the box office. While that does make up for its $6 million budget, it didn’t exactly take off like other superhero films. Still, it may be a cult favorite for years to come – and that could open up its darkened universe.
Brightburn is in theaters now. What do you think about a “dark” league of superheroes? Let us know in the comments below!
