Comics
DCU adds horror to its upcoming movie slate with titular Batman villain – Clayface
Body horror is coming to the DCU. Will it deliver what “Swamp Thing” couldn’t?
Villainy comes to the newly erected DCU under the direction of DC Studios’ co-head James Gunn as the Clayface movie gets greenlit with a rather surprising rating. Currently the film is scheduled to be released in cinemas come 2026. Already attached is James Watkins as director, and it will star Tom Rhys Harries as the titular Batman villain.
And the rating? Likely Restricted. In Gunn’s words:
“I mean, it’s not anything now, because the MPA has to watch it. But it’s most likely rated R. It’s pretty intense.”
Likely taking some body horror vibes from the likes of The Substance. But more interestingly Gunn’s choice of content feels more like a reactionary need for more pipeline projects rather than anything wholly strategic in the comic movie vein. Which is not necessarily a terrible thing. We just hope it is not stemming from the Clayface in Batman: The Animated series compared to The Substance meme.
“Clayface was not on our [initial] checklist. But Mike [Flanagan] came in with a pitch for Clayface that was like, ‘Whoa. That is so cool.’ Then he wrote the screenplay and fulfilled doubly on that promise. The thing about Clayface that’s so cool is that Peter [Safran] and I, back when we were producing horror movies — The Belko Experiment, all these things — I’m like, ‘If we had gotten the script as a horror movie, not being part of the DCU at all.’ It’s like this amazing body horror film that we would jump at the chance to make. It’s just a great horror movie that is a great, smart, fun, fun horror movie in a genre that I happen to love, body horror.”
In the comics, Clayface is a villain with shapeshifting abilities that allows him to craftily mimic others. There are many iterations of the villain Clayface and how he obtained his powers, but the more culturally impactful iteration came from the Batman: The Animated Series, which detailed the story of an actor named Matt Hagen. Hagen used a unstable chemical compound that provided a temporary fix of his facial scar.
However, through scrupulous dealings with the compound’s owner–corrupt industrialist Roland Daggett–Hagen gets a heavy dose of the compound which renders his body to putty.
And while his form was now virtually sludge, he had the ability to maintain and impersonate the visage of entirely different people with his acting and shapeshifting abilities, as well as generate melée weapons with his appendages. Something he would lean heavily into when acting out his crimes.
Are you excited for a horror movie in the DCU. Or will this go the way of broken promises like The New Mutants or Swamp Thing?
