DC Studios Releases Full Trailer For Clayface

We don’t know how long the Gunnverse will stick around for, but if it never finds the box office glory it’s seeking, at least it’s taking some wild chances while doing so. The next DC Studios film, Clayface, is definitely not for everyone. It’s an R-rated horror movie about the origin of one of Batman’s villains…the one that can reshape his body to look like anyone. Before Clayface had a handle on his powers, though, he was quite a mess…literally.

Clayface made his first appearance in 1940, one year after Batman himself. Most interpretations of him have used the same back story, which is also adapted for this film: he’s a struggling actor who gets doused one day with this chemical that changes his DNA (which tends to happen a lot in Gotham), and he can now look like anybody or anything, though his “default” body is now a morphous brown blob. With this new power, he turns to crime, figuring no one can stop him, and forgetting he lives in the same neighborhood as the World’s Greatest Detective.

The changes DC Studios makes to this story are minor: his birth-given name is now Matt Hagen instead of Basil Karlo, he got his disfigurement from a run-in with the mob, and the chemicals that enhanced him were from a voluntary experiment. Otherwise, it’s the same fella…whom we’ve already met in one episode of Creature Commandos, an animated series Gunn scripted himself and says is canon.

Clayface stars Tom Rhys Harries (The Gentlemen) as Matt Hagen, Naomi Ackie (Mickey 17) as Dr. Caitlin Corr, and Max Minghella (The Handmaid’s Tale) as John Pearlman. Directed by James Watkins from a script by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, it will be out just in time for Halloween, October 23.