Clayface (film)

Based on Wikipedia: Clayface (film)

Hollywood's Strangest Superhero Movie Is Actually a Horror Film

Here's something you don't see every day: a comic book movie that wants to make you uncomfortable. Not thrilled, not inspired, not eager to buy merchandise—genuinely unsettled. The upcoming Clayface film, set for release in September 2026, isn't trying to launch a franchise or sell action figures. It's trying to be a tragedy wrapped in body horror, closer in spirit to David Cronenberg's The Fly than anything Marvel has ever produced.

The pitch that sold this movie to DC Studios wasn't about superpowers or team-ups. It was about an actor whose face gets destroyed by a gangster, driving him to a scientist who transforms his entire body into living clay. That's not a superhero origin story. That's a nightmare.

The Long Road from Rejected Pitch to Greenlight

Mike Flanagan wanted to make this movie for years before anyone would listen.

Flanagan, if you're not familiar with his work, has become something of a horror auteur in the streaming era. He's the mind behind The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and Doctor Sleep—projects that blend genuine dread with emotional depth. He doesn't make slashers or jump-scare factories. He makes horror that lingers.

Back in January 2021, Flanagan went public with his obsession: he wanted to adapt Clayface, a relatively obscure Batman villain, into a standalone film. His inspiration was a two-part episode from Batman: The Animated Series called "Feat of Clay," which aired in 1992. In that episode, voiced by Ron Perlman, Clayface wasn't just a monster—he was a broken man whose transformation stripped away everything that made him human while granting him the power to become anyone. It was tragic in a way that children's animation rarely attempts.

Flanagan had actually pitched this idea before, in a general meeting with DC Films producer Jon Berg. The meeting, as Flanagan put it, "kind of went nowhere." DC didn't bite. But Flanagan kept the idea alive, waiting for the right moment.

That moment came through corporate chaos.

The Corporate Shuffle That Made Everything Possible

To understand how Clayface went from rejected pitch to actual production, you need to understand what happened to DC's film division between 2021 and 2024. It's a story of mergers, leadership changes, and a complete strategic overhaul.

In April 2022, Discovery, Incorporated merged with WarnerMedia—the parent company of DC Comics—to form Warner Bros. Discovery. The new company's CEO, David Zaslav, looked at the mess that was DC's film strategy and decided they needed their own version of Kevin Feige, the executive who had turned Marvel's scattered comic book properties into a coherent cinematic universe.

By the end of October 2022, Zaslav had found his answer: James Gunn and Peter Safran would co-chair the newly formed DC Studios. Gunn, who had directed both Guardians of the Galaxy films for Marvel and The Suicide Squad for DC, brought creative credibility. Safran, a veteran producer, brought business acumen.

Within a week of starting their new roles, Gunn and Safran began planning what they called a "soft reboot"—a new DC Universe that would essentially start fresh while not completely erasing everything that came before. The previous iteration, known as the DC Extended Universe, had produced hits like Wonder Woman and Aquaman alongside notorious misfires like Justice League. The new regime wanted coherence, quality control, and a clear vision.

This is where Flanagan's persistence paid off.

The Pitch That Actually Worked

In March 2023, Flanagan and his producing partner Trevor Macy walked into a meeting with Gunn and Safran. They had one shot to sell a character that most casual moviegoers had never heard of.

Their angle was crucial: Clayface wouldn't be a villain.

In the comics, Clayface is typically portrayed as a monstrous antagonist for Batman to punch. Different versions of the character have existed over the decades—a horror actor turned mud-creature, a treasure hunter transformed by radioactive protoplasm, a woman made of acidic clay. What they all share is villainy. They're obstacles for the hero to overcome.

Flanagan wanted to flip that entirely. His Clayface would be the protagonist, a tragic figure whose transformation we'd experience from the inside. The horror wouldn't come from a monster attacking innocents—it would come from watching a man lose himself, piece by piece, as his body betrayed everything he once was.

Gunn, who had made a career out of finding humanity in unlikely characters, was sold. He later admitted that he hadn't planned to make a Clayface movie at all, but Flanagan's pitch and the script drafts that followed changed his mind completely.

The Director Who Wasn't

There's an irony at the heart of this production: the person most responsible for the movie's existence won't actually direct it.

When DC Studios greenlit Clayface in December 2024, Flanagan's schedule was packed. He was committed to a new Exorcist film and a Carrie miniseries—projects that would occupy him well past the start of Clayface's production. For the first time in his career, Flanagan had to walk away from something he'd nurtured for years.

It wasn't a clean break. Flanagan described the experience as bittersweet, saying he hoped whoever took over would "make it their own" while staying true to the spirit of what he'd originally envisioned. That's a generous sentiment, but it's also an acknowledgment of loss. This was his baby, and he had to hand it to someone else.

The search for that someone else became its own drama.

Finding the Right Director for a Very Weird Movie

DC Studios began hearing pitches from potential directors in February 2025. The list included some interesting names: J.A. Bayona, whose work on A Monster Calls demonstrated a gift for emotional horror; James Watkins, known for the 2024 remake of Speak No Evil; and Jeff Wadlow, though reports conflicted on whether he was ever seriously considered.

One notable rejection came from Demián Rugna, an Argentine filmmaker whose Cuando Acecha la Maldad had earned horror-fan acclaim. Rugna turned down the opportunity because, quite simply, he wasn't interested. He didn't know the character, and more importantly, he didn't want to make a superhero movie. It's a reminder that "superhero fatigue" isn't just a box-office phenomenon—some filmmakers simply don't want to play in that sandbox, regardless of how unique the project might be.

James Watkins won the job after giving a final presentation to James Gunn on February 20, 2025. The choice made sense: Watkins had proven he could handle psychological horror with emotional stakes. His Speak No Evil wasn't about monsters or supernatural threats—it was about social anxiety, manipulation, and the terrifying consequences of being too polite to save yourself.

That sensibility—horror rooted in human vulnerability rather than external threats—aligned perfectly with what Flanagan had built.

Casting the Uncatchable

Finding an actor to play Clayface presented a unique challenge. The character spends much of the story as an actor whose face has been destroyed, eventually becoming a being made entirely of shapeshifting clay. This isn't a role that offers traditional leading-man appeal. There's no square-jawed hero's journey here—just deterioration, desperation, and monstrous transformation.

Early names floated for the role included Daniel Radcliffe, which Gunn quickly shot down. By June 2025, a more serious list had emerged: Tom Blyth, George MacKay, Jack O'Connell, and Leo Woodall all read for the part. These are actors known for intensity rather than blockbuster charisma—choices that reinforced the film's horror-first approach.

But Gunn and Safran weren't satisfied. After what Gunn called "a long and incredibly exhaustive search," they landed on Tom Rhys Harries, a Welsh actor best known for the Netflix series White Lines. Rhys Harries wasn't a household name, which might have been the point. Casting a relative unknown meant audiences wouldn't bring preconceptions to the role. They'd meet Matt Hagen—the character's name in this version—without the baggage of previous performances.

Naomi Ackie, who had appeared in films ranging from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker to the Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody, was cast as Dr. Caitlin Bates, the scientist responsible for Hagen's transformation. The character has been compared to Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced Theranos founder—suggesting Bates operates in ethically murky territory, pursuing breakthroughs that established science would reject.

Max Minghella joined as a Gotham City police detective who happens to be dating Bates, adding a law-enforcement perspective to what's essentially a story about scientific horror gone wrong.

Liverpool Becomes Gotham

Principal photography began on August 31, 2025, in Liverpool, England—the same city that had doubled for Gotham in Matt Reeves's The Batman. There's a practical poetry to this choice: Liverpool's Victorian architecture and industrial heritage make it a convincing stand-in for DC's most corrupt fictional city.

The production transformed Liverpool's city center into various Gotham locations. Derby Square, with its Law Courts building, became Gotham Hospital. North John Street was dressed to look like Gotham Docks. The Liverpool Central Library doubled for Gotham City Crown Court. Former Merseyside Police headquarters stored Gotham-themed vehicles between scenes.

Filming also took place in Wallasey, including at the Seacombe Ferry Terminal, and in New Brighton at the Marine Promenade outside an amusement park called Adventureland. A house on Tollemache Street was converted to look like an American home—a reminder that even when filming in England, the movie needs to feel like it takes place in a recognizably American city.

Studio work happened at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, the facility that once housed the Harry Potter productions and has since become DC Studios' primary UK production hub. The shoot wrapped on November 1, 2025, making for a roughly two-month production schedule—notably tight for a film that presumably involves extensive prosthetics and visual effects work.

What Kind of Movie Is This, Really?

When Peter Safran compared Clayface to The Fly, he wasn't just dropping a reference. He was making a promise about tone and ambition.

David Cronenberg's 1986 film—itself a remake of a 1958 creature feature—follows a scientist whose teleportation experiment goes wrong, gradually transforming him into a human-fly hybrid. It's not a monster movie in the traditional sense. It's a tragedy about watching someone you love become unrecognizable, about the horror of a body that betrays its inhabitant. The creature effects are grotesque, yes, but the real terror comes from Jeff Goldblum's performance as a man losing his grip on humanity.

That comparison suggests Clayface will prioritize emotional devastation over action setpieces. It won't be about Batman fighting a mud monster. It'll be about watching Matt Hagen dissolve—first metaphorically as his face is destroyed and his career ends, then literally as his body becomes something inhuman.

The film is intended to receive an R-rating, which is unusual for superhero properties but essential for genuine body horror. You can't make The Fly with a PG-13 constraint. The transformation needs to be visceral, uncomfortable, impossible to look away from.

The Larger DC Universe Context

Clayface exists within a larger cinematic framework that DC Studios is calling "Chapter One: Gods and Monsters." This sounds grandiose, but the specifics suggest something more interesting: a willingness to tell different kinds of stories under the DC banner.

The traditional superhero model—established by Marvel over fifteen years of interconnected films—emphasizes consistency, crossover potential, and audience-friendly tones. Even darker entries like Captain America: The Winter Soldier maintain a fundamental optimism. The good guys win, the universe expands, and everything builds toward the next team-up event.

DC Studios seems to be pursuing a different strategy: genuine tonal diversity. Clayface will be body horror. Other projects might be action-comedies, space operas, or street-level crime dramas. The connecting tissue isn't tone—it's the shared universe itself.

This approach carries risk. Audiences who enjoy one DC film might actively dislike another. Someone who shows up for Clayface expecting superhero spectacle will get something closer to a David Cronenberg film. But it also allows for creative ambition that a more homogenized approach would prevent.

The Character's Strange Comics History

The name "Clayface" has referred to multiple characters over DC Comics' decades-long history, and understanding this history illuminates what the film is and isn't trying to do.

The original Clayface, Basil Karlo, debuted in 1940 as a horror-movie actor who went insane and started killing people while wearing a clay mask. He didn't have superpowers—just madness and murderous intent. This version was essentially a standard Golden Age villain, created when comic books were churning out antagonists without much concern for lasting mythology.

Matt Hagen, the version the film adapts, appeared in 1961 with actual shapeshifting abilities. A treasure hunter who discovered a pool of radioactive protoplasm, Hagen could mold his body into any form—but only temporarily, requiring repeated exposure to the protoplasm to maintain his powers. Later retcons and reboots gave various Clayfaces different origins and abilities, including a woman made of acidic clay and a version created when multiple Clayfaces merged into a single entity.

The animated series version that inspired Flanagan combined elements from several comic iterations: Matt Hagen, an actor rather than a treasure hunter, whose face is destroyed by a gangster after he becomes addicted to a compound that allows him to change his appearance. When he overdoses on the compound, his entire body becomes malleable clay. He can be anyone, but he's lost himself in the process.

That's the tragedy the film wants to capture: the horror of infinite possibility that destroys the thing that made you distinct.

The Economics of Unusual Superhero Films

One detail worth noting: Clayface was intended to be produced on a "stripped down" budget of around forty million dollars. For context, the average Marvel film costs upward of two hundred million to produce. Even smaller superhero entries like Shazam! have budgets exceeding one hundred million.

Forty million is indie territory for this genre. It's a recognition that not every comic book property needs to be an effects extravaganza with world-ending stakes. A character study about body horror doesn't require city-destroying climaxes or armies of digital creatures. It requires good actors, effective prosthetics, and confident direction.

This budget constraint might actually benefit the film. Limited resources force creative solutions. When you can't solve every problem with spectacle, you have to rely on performance, atmosphere, and genuine filmmaking craft. The Fly, that obvious touchstone, worked precisely because the horror emerged from intimate scenes between two actors rather than from expensive setpieces.

What Success Would Mean

If Clayface works—if audiences and critics respond to its body-horror approach—it could validate an entire category of superhero filmmaking that studios have been reluctant to pursue.

For years, the assumption has been that comic book movies need to appeal to the widest possible audience, which means avoiding anything too dark, too weird, or too demanding. The R-rated Deadpool films proved that adult-oriented superhero content could succeed commercially, but even those films wrapped their violence in comedy, making the edginess palatable.

Clayface is attempting something harder: genuine horror without ironic distance. It's asking audiences to sit with discomfort, to watch transformation as tragedy rather than adventure. That's a much tougher sell, and there's no guarantee it will work.

But the attempt matters. The superhero genre has dominated mainstream filmmaking for nearly two decades now. If it's going to remain vital—if it's going to produce anything worth caring about rather than just content to consume—it needs to expand what kinds of stories it can tell. Clayface represents one possible direction: smaller budgets, genre specificity, and emotional ambitions that go beyond good-versus-evil simplicity.

Whether audiences want that remains to be seen. The movie arrives in September 2026, offering an answer we don't have yet.