It’s an exciting time for DC fans, because we finally have our first proper look at the next installment in the DC Universe. That would be Clayface – the stand-alone solo film written by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, and directed by James Watkins – which finally dropped its first trailer. The movie stars Tom Rhys Harries as the Matt Hagen incarnation of the prominent Batman villain, and will be heavily inspired by the two-part “Feat of Clay” story from Batman: The Animated Series. It may seem like an odd choice for the third mainline DCU film after Superman and Supergirl, but it shows that this new franchise is open to taking some bizarre creative swings, which should help distinguish it in a marketplace dominated by the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Most importantly, the trailer indicates that Clayface may be a serious course correction for villain-centered comic book movies, which have been struggling severely. Between the embarrassing failure of Joker: Folie à Deux and the outright disaster that was the Sony Spider-Man Universe, Clayface is fighting an uphill battle to reverse the trend of bad villain movies. Going by our first look, however, the filmmakers may have exactly the right approach: Let your lead actually be a bad guy. Let’s get into it!
Slinging Mud
The trailer opens on our protagonist, Matt Hagen; he’s in the hospital with a severely damaged face covered in bandages. Fans of Batman: TAS will recognize Hagen’s backstory – that of a has-been actor (a trait taken from the Basil Karlo incarnation in the Golden Age-era comics) who is disfigured in an accident and gains shape-shifting powers from an experimental formula. As noted in our Clayface Movie Burning Questions piece about the trailer, this is far removed from Hagen’s backstory in the comics, where he obtained his powers from immersing himself in a pool of radioactive fluid he returned to periodically to recharge his abilities (he must be part of Ra’s al Ghul’s social circle). Still, the DC Animated Universe version of Clayface is the most well-known adaptation of the character with the general audience, and his episodes tend to be ranked as some of the best in the show’s widely celebrated history, so it makes sense to stick with what your average cinemagoer knows about the character.
More pressingly, the trailer’s visualization of Clayface’s powers seem to be sticking close to the movie’s original pitch as a tragic body horror film. Mike Flanagan of Doctor Sleep and The Haunting of Hill House fame brought the idea of a Clayface solo feature to DC Studios after Warner Bros. decided to reboot their DC film universe, and while he’s no longer directing the film – he’s still credited as screenwriter alongside Amini – the trailer appears to be honoring Flanagan’s vision for the character. That it’s such a stark departure from the Guardians of the Galaxy vibe of the Supergirl trailer – the other big DCU film releasing this year – proves that the DCU is looking to be more malleable than the MCU when it comes to tone and content, which is a good thing for the genre’s health.
Also good for the health of the genre: If studios are going to keep insisting on making solo films for villainous comic book characters, they should actually let them be villains even when they’re in the lead roles. This is something Sony tried to push back on with their Spider-Man spin-offs to their detriment. Thankfully, all signs point to Clayface not following in their wake.
Bring on the Bad Guys
To be clear, there’s no one right way to make a comic book movie, and as I’ve said previously on IGN, one of my cardinal beliefs is that you can make a good movie out of anything. Even though movies like Venom: The Last Dance, Morbius, and Kraven the Hunter were all terrible, that doesn’t mean centering a CBM on a villainous lead is an inherently bad idea. Sony’s biggest problems when building their shared universe were bending the characters they were adapting out of shape so they could follow bland hero’s journey arcs, and also that they were seemingly unable to include Spider-Man in movies featuring Spider-Man characters. But Clayface has a chance to move the needle on both of those problems.
In the trailer, we see flashes of Hagen’s shadow on an alleyway wall as he forms his fist into a mace and slams it down on an unseen target. Is Hagen getting revenge on someone involved in his disfigurement, or is he lashing out in anger at an innocent target shortly after realizing he’ll never be the same again? Either way, that’s not the kind of act a heroic character partakes in. There’s not enough footage to predict the film’s entire plot, but what we’ve seen so far points to Hagen being portrayed as a deeply flawed and violent main character who is set to embrace his darker impulses after going through such a traumatic experience. If Clayface can tap into the creative energy of movies like Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face or David Cronenberg’s The Fly, we may be in for something special.
As for the second issue, we most likely won’t be seeing Batman in a significant capacity in Clayface. DC hasn’t cast their new Batman yet (to our knowledge), and Robert Pattinson’s incarnation seems to be set in his own universe for the time being. Although it would be nice to get a cameo of Bruce Wayne in costume, either from behind or on a distant rooftop, there’s enough juice in the tank for a movie that focuses purely on Clayface while maybe including supporting roles or easter eggs that hint at the wider world of the DCU’s Gotham. Even if Batman is MIA, the difference between this and Sony’s universe is that we know Batman is coming. This isn’t like fans getting gaslit into thinking Venom and Spider-Man were going to cross paths via the multiverse; Clayface will almost assuredly run into Batman in a future DCU project – remember that Hagen already appeared in animated form in Creature Commandos – so this movie has room to cut loose without annoying fans by refusing to follow through with an appearance by You Know Who.
While we won’t know how Clayface shapes up until October, this trailer points to DC making the right moves. If it’s a success, hopefully other studios developing CBMs will understand that bad guys don’t have to mean bad movies.
Carlos Morales writes novels, articles, and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Twitter.
