The new DC Studios regime has spent a lot of time talking about range, but “Clayface” may be the first real litmus test of what that means in practice. On paper, a solo movie built around a B-level Batman villain still sounds like the sort of left-field swing that makes executives nervous. Then again, DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn has made a career out of betting on strange, unloved material. Before “Clayface,” he took Marvel’s “Guardians Of The Galaxy”—a C-list team at best, an oddball collection of beautiful losers—and turned them into one of the studio’s defining franchises. That same instinct is all over this pick. A grotesque, unstable shape-shifter with body-horror baked into his mythology is exactly the kind of misfit Gunn would see not as a liability, but as a feature.
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The first trailer for “Clayface” sells that angle fast, positioning the film less like a conventional cape story and more like a horror picture that happens to live inside the DCU. That much is already baked into the project. Mike Flanagan originated the script, Hossein Amini is credited alongside him, James Watkins directs, and Gunn has already described the movie as “a body-horror movie” set in the shared universe. That is probably the smartest way to frame this thing, too. Clayface has always been one of those rogue-gallery figures who work best when he is treated as tragic, unstable, and a little disgusting—not polished into another four-quadrant antihero.
The movie stars Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen, here reimagined as a struggling actor whose face is disfigured, leading him to seek help from a scientist. Naomi Ackie co-stars as that scientist, with Max Minghella also in the cast. The broad setup alone already tells you why this was attractive to Gunn and company: there is built-in movie-business vanity, bodily collapse, identity panic, and a villain whose entire mythology is rooted in unstable form. That is not just comic-book IP; it is a horror premise.
It also gives DC a chance to keep proving that the new universe does not need every project to march in tonal lockstep. Gunn confirmed last year that “Clayface” is part of the main DCU continuity alongside “Superman” and “Peacemaker,” but the appeal here is that it does not have to look or feel like either one. If “Superman” is meant to be bright and mythic, “Clayface” can be the opposite—a grubby, shape-shifting nightmare about fame, ruin, and the horror of losing your own face.
Here’s the official synopsis:
DC Studios’ first-ever foray into the genre, “Clayface,” is a riveting horror thriller from director James Watkins, starring Tom Rhys Harries in the title role of the Gotham City villain. “Clayface” unravels one man’s horrifying descent from rising Hollywood star to revenge-filled monster in a story that explores the loss of one’s identity and humanity, corrosive love, and the dark underbelly of scientific ambition.
There is also something refreshing about DC reaching past the top shelf. Everybody knows the marquee names. Everybody knows the billion-dollar strategy version of superhero filmmaking. But a “Clayface” movie suggests a different instinct: use the comic-book sandbox to make stranger genre pieces, and let the characters fit the tone instead of forcing the tone to fit the brand.
Warner Bros. has dated “Clayface” for October 23, 2026, after moving it from its original September slot—a shift that makes even more sense if the studio sees this as a fall horror play rather than standard superhero product. And honestly, that is the cleanest pitch for it. Not a curiosity. Not a side quest. A horror movie wearing DC skin. Watch the trailer below.
