Clayface is the comic-book movie that does not want to be one, and that is why it might work.
Gunn’s DCU is sending a melting man into theaters on September 11. For once the ‘it’s actually horror’ line is the honest one.
The Clayface trailer is a dressing room and a body that will not stay a body. That is not a teaser for a cameo. That is a horror movie that happens to know where Gotham is. September 11 is a brutal date for anything, and it is a fascinating date for a film about a man who cannot keep a face.
DC has spent twenty years trying to make grim mean ‘adult.’ This is the first time in a while the grim looks like a genre instead of a brand guideline. If Matt Hagen is the point - an actor, a disease, a city that only loves him when he is useful - then the movie can sit next to The Fly and still pay the rent to the cape department.
Stop asking comic movies to be universes. Ask this one to be a monster.
I would rather this swing and be disgusting than another competent origin that explains a power set. Supergirl already did the cosmic hangover. Lanterns is doing prestige murder. Clayface is the test of whether the DCU will let a film be minor in the best way: one monster, one city, one bad miracle.
Buy a ticket for the makeup and stay for the question the trailer is already asking. If you can be anyone, what is left that is worth being?
How we made this: researched and drafted with AI assistance.
Original commentary based on public reporting. Not a reprint. Editorial standards.