Last night, we got a first look at some behind-the-scenes photos of a practical Clayface costume that was created to serve as an on-set lighting reference for the CG "Sewer Creature" Matt Hagen transforms into at the end of the movie, and the KM Effects team has now shared a glimpse of the incredibly impressive suit in action.
While Clayface's final form was clearly influenced by the comics, the creature design retained some of actor Tom Rhys Harries' features. This suit is a far more faithful recreation of the Batman villain's monstrous look, although one half of the face does still have a slightly more humanoid appearance.
"Yesterday I posted some images from the test fitting of the Clayface creature suit we did for the recent movie @clayfacemovie. Here is some footage of the wonderful @spencerwilding giving the suit a little movement. Again, this was just a suit to aid VFX with lighting and framing. A lot of fun was had with my wonderful team at KM Effects."
During a recent interview with Variety, director James Watkins explained how he decided on the character's final form.
"I took everything as a reference and tried to choose, because there are so many versions in the comics. We did about 19 different iterations. You want to honor the comics, but at the same time, you want to make sure it can work as live-action because it’s obviously a different medium. The key thing for me was making sure that it captured the emotion, the man inside the monster. I was particularly obsessed with his left eye and the pain and the heartbreak within that and the scream, the quality of his voice. I first responded in Mike’s script to the idea of the tragedy and the journey of his character and where he ends up and going with him."
Clayface, which had a reported production budget of around $44 million, has been performing relatively well at the box office and has now passed $90 million worldwide.
DC Studios’ first-ever foray into the genre, Clayface is a 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.
The film also stars Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella and Eddie Marsan, as well as Nancy Carroll and Joshua James. James Watkins directs from a screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, story by Flanagan, based on characters from DC.
Clayface is produced by Matt Reeves, Lynn Harris, James Gunn and Peter Safran, with Michael E. Uslan, Rafi Crohn, Paul Ritchie, Chantal Nong Vo and Lars P. Winther executive producing.