{"id":47075,"date":"2026-08-15T18:03:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T13:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=47075"},"modified":"2026-08-15T18:03:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T13:03:20","slug":"james-gunns-first-superman-movie-is-an-underrated-sci-fi-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=47075","title":{"rendered":"James Gunn&#8217;s First Superman Movie Is An Underrated Sci-Fi Thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Last summer, James Gunn brought the Superman we know and love back to the big screen. After a decade\u2019s worth of dour, dreary Superman movies about a mopey Man of Steel, Gunn and a perfectly cast David Corenswet turned Supes back into a big, lovable Boy Scout; the living embodiment of all that\u2019s good, whose only internal conflict is that he can\u2019t be in more than one place at once, so he can\u2019t save everyone who needs to be saved \u2014 Gunn illustrated that beautifully in <a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/superman-movie-ending-explained\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Superman<\/em>\u2019s final battle<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- No AdsNinja v10 Client! --><\/p>\n<p>Although it stumbled a little this year with <a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/supergirl-needle-drop-controversy-explained\/\" target=\"_blank\">the critical and commercial disappointment of <em>Supergirl<\/em><\/a>, <em>Superman<\/em> got Gunn\u2019s DCU off to an exciting start. The universe arrived fully formed, jam-packed with superheroes, supervillains, aliens, monsters, and MacGuffins. The movie is filled with scene-stealing supporting players, from Mister Terrific to Guy Gardner to an inexplicably irresistible Jimmy Olsen.<\/p>\n<p>But Gunn never takes the focus away from Superman himself. The movie is a character study above all, using a typical week in Superman\u2019s life to show us what kind of person he is. It really feels like a comic book come to life, like you picked up a random issue off the shelf and started flicking through it to see what Superman got up to that week. More recently, <a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/naruto-spider-man-brand-new-day-easter-egg-live-action-movie\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Spider-Man: Brand New Day<\/em> captured that feeling with aplomb<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Superman<\/em> marked a triumphant beginning for Gunn\u2019s DCU, but it wasn\u2019t technically his first Superman movie. Six years earlier, Gunn produced <a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/brightburn-movie-reviews-wrong-evil-superman-complex\/\" target=\"_blank\">a horror reimagining of the Superman story called <em>Brightburn<\/em><\/a>. At the time, Gunn couldn\u2019t have imagined that he\u2019d be handed the keys to the DC kingdom and given the freedom to make real Superman movies, so he made a horror version. <em>Brightburn<\/em> was a modest box office success, considering its low budget, but it remains an underappreciated gem.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- No AdsNinja v10 Client! --><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"brightburn-retold-superman-39-s-story-as-a-horror-movie\">\n                        Brightburn Retold Superman&#8217;s Story As A Horror Movie<br \/>\n               <\/h2>\n<div class=\"body-img landscape \">\n<div class=\"responsive-img  image-expandable  img-article-item\" style=\"padding-bottom:50%\" data-img-url=\"https:\/\/static0.srcdn.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/brightburn-jackson-a-dunn.jpg\" data-modal-id=\"single-image-modal\" data-modal-container-id=\"single-image-modal-container\" data-img-caption=\"&quot;&quot;\">\n<figure><picture><source media=\"(max-width: 480px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.srcdn.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/brightburn-jackson-a-dunn.jpg?q=49&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=500&amp;dpr=2\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.srcdn.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/brightburn-jackson-a-dunn.jpg?q=49&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=500&amp;dpr=2\"\/><source media=\"(max-width: 767px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.srcdn.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/brightburn-jackson-a-dunn.jpg?q=70&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=800&amp;dpr=1\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.srcdn.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/brightburn-jackson-a-dunn.jpg?q=70&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=800&amp;dpr=1\"\/><source media=\"(max-width: 1023px)\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.srcdn.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/brightburn-jackson-a-dunn.jpg?q=70&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=825&amp;dpr=1\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static0.srcdn.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/brightburn-jackson-a-dunn.jpg?q=70&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=825&amp;dpr=1\"\/><img width=\"825\" height=\"413\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Jackson A. Dunn as Brandon staring into the camera with red eyes in Brightburn.\" data-img-url=\"https:\/\/static0.srcdn.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/brightburn-jackson-a-dunn.jpg?q=70&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=825&amp;dpr=1\" src=\"https:\/\/static0.srcdn.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/brightburn-jackson-a-dunn.jpg?q=70&amp;fit=crop&amp;w=825&amp;dpr=1\"\/>\n        <\/picture><figcaption style=\"display: none;\">Jackson A. Dunn as Brandon staring into the camera with red eyes in Brightburn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> Everyone knows <a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/superman-origin-krypton-destruction-parents-earth\/\" target=\"_blank\">Superman\u2019s origin story<\/a>: his home planet of Krypton was destroyed, his parents sent him to Earth in an escape pod, he was adopted by a lovely couple in Kansas named the Kents, he grew up with superhuman powers thanks to the Earth\u2019s yellow sun, and his parents raised him to use those powers for good, so he became the world\u2019s omnipotent protector. <a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/dc-universe-superman-brightburn-horror-movie-director-david-yarovesky\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Brightburn<\/em> told a much less optimistic version<\/a> of that story. What if Kal-El didn\u2019t turn out so good? What if he was a bad kid, with violent tendencies and a deep well of rage?<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve seen plenty of these \u201c<em>evil Superman<\/em>\u201d stories recently, from <em>The Boys<\/em> to <em>Invincible<\/em> \u2014 heck, the <em>Justice League<\/em> movie made Superman himself evil \u2014 but <em>Brightburn<\/em> put a unique spin on it. Homelander and Omni-Man are both fully grown men, but Brandon Breyer from <em>Brightburn<\/em> is just 12 years old. At age 12, Brandon\u2019s dormant alien powers start to emerge, and instead of using those powers to help people, like Clark Kent does, he decides to punish everyone he feels has wronged him: the girl he likes who rejected him; the uncle who chastised his bad behavior.<\/p>\n<p><em>Brightburn<\/em> is a haunting mix of <em>Superman<\/em> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/the-twilight-zone-episodes-still-scary-creepy\/\" target=\"_blank\">classic <em>Twilight Zone<\/em> episode<\/a> \u201cIt\u2019s a Good Life,\u201d in which six-year-old Anthony Fremont uses his godlike powers to keep the town of Peaksville, Ohio, living in fear, answering to his every sadistic whim. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster came up with the perfect modern myth when they created Superman; they turned Nietzsche\u2019s concept of the \u00dcbermensch into a relatable human being: a good, honest, incorruptible force of justice that we can all look up to.<\/p>\n<p>Humanity needs Superman as a symbol; he represents all the things we need more of in the world. But there\u2019s a sinister flipside to that what-if scenario. The Superman story assumes Clark grows up to be unwaveringly good, but <em><strong>Brightburn<\/strong><\/em> asks: what if he didn\u2019t?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last summer, James Gunn brought the Superman we know and love back to the big screen. After a decade\u2019s worth of dour, dreary Superman movies about a mopey Man of Steel, Gunn and a perfectly cast David Corenswet turned Supes back into a big, lovable Boy Scout; the living embodiment of all that\u2019s good, whose&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static0.srcdn.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/superman_6bxdzm.jpg?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}