The first time I heard “Clayface” and “horror movie” in the same sentence, I laughed. Then I remembered The Batman's grimy aesthetic and went, Oh. They're serious. Now, with Naomi Ackie (Mickey 17, The Woman King) locked in as the female lead opposite Tom Rhys Harries, DC's doubling down on the idea. And I'm… cautiously intrigued? Or just tired. Hard to tell these days.
Let's be real—this isn't your dad's Clayface. No campy, mud-monster antics here. Instead, we're getting a “washed-up actor disfigured by a gangster” who injects himself with “a mysterious substance” to stay relevant. Sound familiar? Yeah, The Neon Demon and Starlet already did the “Hollywood eats its own” thing, but sure, let's slap a DC logo on it.
The real curveball? The tone. James Watkins (The Woman in Black) directing, Mike Flanagan's discarded script retooled by Hossein Amini (Drive), and a $40M budget that screams “We're not sure either.” Horror's a smart play—Clayface's shape-shifting is begging for body horror—but DC's track record with “genre experiments” (cough Joker 2 as a musical cough) doesn't inspire confidence.
Ackie's a stellar pick, though. She's got the range to balance dread and desperation, and if anyone can sell a line like “My face… it's melting” without irony, it's her. But let's not pretend this isn't a franchise Hail Mary. DC's flailing post-Flash, and Clayface feels less like a vision and more like a “What if we just… didn't do superheroes?” shrug.
Release dates? Nada. Filming starts this September in the UK, so best-case, we're looking at late 2026. By then, we'll either be starving for gritty DC detours or so over it that Clayface becomes trivia.
Final thought: This could be the The Batman of villain flicks—or another Morbius. Either way, I'll watch. Grudgingly.
