Filming is now officially underway on DC Studios' Clayface, and we have some new photos and a video from the Liverpool set.
Possible plot spoilers follow.
The video shows a crowd gathered outside the entrance to Gotham General, as a patient on a stretcher is rushed inside. One of the photos also features a man with bandages around his head, who may or may not be Tom Rhys Harries (or his stand-in) as Matt Hagen.
Even if it's a different character altogether, there's a good chance this scene focuses on Hagen being attended to after suffering the "accident" that will ultimately lead to his Clayface transformation.
The photos also reveal that Eddie Marsan (Ray Donovan, Hancock, Sherlock Holmes) has joined the cast in a mysterious role (believed to be Hagen's manager), and the clapperboard gives us a first look at the movie's logo.
In addition, some more graffiti has been spotted around the set, with "The Jokers" written on a wall. There's speculation that this could refer to the Clown Prince of Crime's gang, but chances are it's just an Easter egg and won't actually be addressed in the film.
UPDATE: Tom Rhys Harries has now arrived to the set.
Clayface will also star Naomi Ackie (Blink Twice, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Mickey 17) as Caitlin Bates, and Max Minghella (The Social Network, The Handmaid's Tale) as her fiancé, John.
The story will reportedly "center on an ascending actor whose face is disfigured by a gangster. As a last resort, the actor turns to a fringe Elizabeth Holmes-style scientist for help. At first, the experiment is a successful but … well, it wouldn’t be a horror movie if the story ended right there, would it?"
Speak No Evil director James Watkins will helm the project, while James Gunn will produce alongside Peter Safran and The Batman director Matt Reeves, with Lynn Harris and Chantal Nong serving as executive producers.
Mike Flanagan penned the script, but was reportedly unavailable to direct due to his commitments to a Carrie TV series. Screenwriter Hossein Amini, best known for penning 2011’s Drive, was recently tapped to do some rewrites. The project has been given an official release date of September 11, 2026.
Though Clayface will be set in the DCU, fans probably shouldn't expect many connections to the wider universe, and we'd be very surprised if Batman shows up or is even mentioned.
Safran shared a few new details on the Flanagan script, noting that Clayface is indeed going to be a full-on horror movie in the same vein as David Cronenberg's The Fly, and more recently, we learned that the movie will also take more than a little inspiration from Coralie Fargeat's body horror hit, The Substance.
"Clayface, you see, is a Hollywood horror story, according to our sources, using the most popular incarnation of the villain – a B-movie actor who injects himself with a substance to keep himself relevant only to find out that he can reshape his face and form, becoming a walking piece of clay.".