On Monday night, I headed to my local Odeon for "Scream Unseen," a mystery horror screening. The cinema chain posts cryptic clues on social media, and the prevailing theory was that it would either be Nightborn or Primetime (the latter doesn't open in the UK until the end of the month). There had been some chatter about Clayface, but that seemed unlikely, especially as the first press screening—commonly referred to as a "Multimedia Screening"—was taking place in London on that evening. Well, it was Clayface, so I sat back to watch what proved to be a decidedly average comic book movie.
I came home, posted a reaction on social media, and followed it up with a review on this site. Having paid £6 for a ticket to a public screening, there was no review embargo in place; Warner Bros. had never made me aware of one, meaning I certainly hadn't agreed to abide by whatever it might be. Here's how a review embargo typically works: in exchange for being granted access to online screeners or the opportunity to attend an in-person showing, you'll agree not to talk about a movie until a certain time and date. Sometimes, you sign a form; other times it's as simple as an email response. The key part is that you must agree to it. What happens if you break an embargo? Honestly, I don't know. It's hard to imagine a studio taking someone to court because they shared an early review of a movie or series, meaning the most likely outcome is that you simply wouldn't be granted early access again in the future. It makes sense, right?
When I woke up on Tuesday morning, it was to an X feed I could barely make sense of. My initial reaction post to Clayface had gained a fair bit of traction, given that it didn't line up with last week's glowing influencer verdicts, but beyond a lot of unhappy DC fans, that wasn't the source of contention: the review was. IGN's Jim Vejvoda had posted, "You’re breaking embargo @Josh_Wilding," clearly unaware that I'd paid to attend a public screening. The post has since received a Community Note—"Josh Wilding reviewed Clayface after paying to attend a public Odeon Scream Unseen screening, not a press event, and stated there was no embargo"—and Jim has cleared the air, so there are no ill feelings on my part, even if a direct message would have arguably been the better way to handle it. Still, a public accusation from a prominent critic like that created a heated debate that made Clayface and, weirdly, me one of the biggest talking points on social media yesterday.
The crux of the issue is simple. If you attend a public screening for a film, should you adhere to the embargo as a critic? There have been arguments on both sides, and honestly, the support from peers has been overwhelming and quite extraordinary. Yes, it's obviously frustrating that critics who attended press screenings are stuck under embargo and unable to share reviews until 24 hours before Clayface's release. It should be obvious why Warner Bros. and DC Studios don't want people to discuss the movie until then. Regardless, that's the agreement you make with the studio in exchange for early access. It does not apply to public screenings.
As Katie Campione explained in a response to Grace Randolph (who recently posted a video full of misinformation about my Clayface review, including when the first UK press screening took place), "There is no such thing as 'reviewer etiquette.' What you're doing is bending the knee to fake rules made up by the studios in the hopes that you don't piss them off, and that is not something that serious critics or journalists do."
"I have worked at Deadline, THR, the Associated Press, and People Magazine, to name several," she continued. "Not a single one of them views embargoes the way the people bashing this critic/defending WB do. An embargo requires you to agree. Explicitly."
Sonny Bunch, Culture Editor at The Bulwark, shared a detailed breakdown of how embargoes work and added, "The idea that critics are beholden to some universal 'embargo,' even if they do not go to a preview screening where they agree to hold their review until a given time, is completely insane and antithetical to journalism. It turns critics into PR props for the studio."
Later, journalist Byron Lafayette wrote, "As a working critic and Chair of [Independent Film Critics of America], I am ashamed to see how some critics have treated [Josh Wilding]. He did nothing wrong, and I am glad to at least see many of my fellow critics supporting him."
The Hot Mic's John Rocha declared, "If a studio releases a movie in another country without emailing embargo specs to that country's critics, then those critics can buy a ticket to see it and review it. Simple. This is on the studio, not the critic." No stranger to controversy, Jeff Sneider even announced himself "Team Wilding."
Former JoBlo.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Shirley was a little more blunt in his assessment. "If you pay to see a movie and don't sign any kind of NDA or agree, in writing, to any kind of embargo, you can review it however the f*** you want."
The point isn't to highlight how much support my decision to post a Clayface review has received, but to highlight how broken this system is. As a critic, I get the frustrations. Why is Warner Bros. holding public screenings while keeping critics muzzled? The answer to that question seems obvious: they want to manufacture hype from fans to overshadow what I would expect to be largely negative reviews for the R-rated DCU movie. The official Clayface movie social media account is currently sharing Letterboxd reviews from fans with star ratings and touting them in promos, all while film critics are forced to sit back in silence, so I understand why I became someone they could vent their frustrations on.
Of course, who they should be mad at is the studio, but calling them out risks losing future access. Fortunately, ComicBookMovie.com's bread and butter is news; reviews and interviews, while enjoyable to work on, don't pull in big or even particularly good numbers. People visit this site for spoilers, leaks, and trailers, not our thoughts on VisionQuest. I'm in a position where a lack of access—or potentially losing access for publishing my Clayface review—doesn't matter. I haven't attended a Warner Bros. screening since The Batman in 2022. That will be five years next March. It isn't because I'm not invited or blacklisted; it's because I live at least two hours outside of London, and a trip there for a screening will ultimately cost me hundreds of pounds in exchange for an article that might make $40. It's simply not worth it. I'm usually happy to post a review on or after a movie is released, because I'm not doing it to curry favour with the studio or to get quoted. My priority isn't a PR department; it's this website's readers and, on Monday, I had the chance, by pure good luck, to be able to share a review of Clayface sooner than expected. You can't lose what you don't have, so if the consequence is that I don't receive screeners for The People vs. Gorilla Grodd, I'll quickly get over it.
I'm immensely grateful to this website's owner and EIC Nate Best for allowing my Clayface review to remain on the site. He could have easily looked at the social media maelstrom—for context, my X posts alone about the movie have received over 1.3 million views—and pulled it. He didn't. Instead, Nate declined to bow to pressure from a media conglomerate and backed me, this website, and you, our readers. Rotten Tomatoes took a slightly different approach. My review has been "suppressed" on the site until the embargo lifts because, as they've since explained to me, the aggregator abides by studio embargoes. That came as news to me, but I understand and respect the decision, even as people on social media wonder if there was some pressure from Warner Bros. (which owns a stake in the company) to make sure Clayface didn't spend 36 hours with a 0% score. Would things be different if it were a positive review? Who knows.
Between this and some of the comments on X, it's hard to shake the feeling of censorship coming into play, and it's particularly alarming to see that some critics—albeit not the majority—are fighting in the corner of a media empire. We give a lot of power to the studios as it is. We talk about movies and TV shows when they say we can watch them on their schedule. It's a fair deal for the most part, but as we've seen with Clayface, it also keeps critics subservient in exchange for seeing a movie a week or so before the public. Like many of you this weekend, I used money I've earned to pay for a ticket to watch a movie. I happened to post a review afterwards, having never agreed to an embargo or even been provided one. The system is flawed, perhaps even broken, and this has created an industry-wide discussion. Whether it leads to a meaningful change remains to be seen. Either way, at times like this, I'm glad to only answer to myself, this website, and you, not a multi-billion-dollar company that doesn't want people to know Clayface is, in my opinion, a bad movie.