Like the scrapped Sgt. Rock movie, Clayface was an unexpected addition to DC Studios' "Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters" slate. Still, with Swamp Thing going nowhere fast, it's certainly making good on the "Monsters" part of the DCU's first wave of titles.
Despite rumblings that Clayface was originally meant to be set in Matt Reeves' Batverse, it will be a DCU story and the first time we get to explore this version of Gotham City in live-action. Announced as filmmaker Mike Flanagan's passion project, everyone was surprised when DC Studios took his script and enlisted writer Hossein Amini and director James Watkins to take charge.
Flanagan has said that he initially worked with Matt Reeves on Clayface before James Gunn and Peter Safran got involved, later confirming that the studio decided to move forward without him when he got tied up with Carrie.
Talking to us about the upcoming Prime Video series, Flanagan reiterated that the Clayface we'll see in theaters this month is not his movie. Is he distancing himself from the DCU after Supergirl's struggles over the summer? Well, he hasn't even seen it yet, but he certainly sounds excited to.
"[Carrie] was different because Clayface had never been adapted before outside of the animated series and in a lot of the animated work, but had never made it into a feature film and certainly never as the central character," Flanagan told us about how the adaptation process differed. "And so Clayface for me felt kind of wide open. It was we were the first to kind of get in and do that."
"Now that said, Clayface, you know, very much is not mine. It’s James Watkins’ movie," the filmmaker stated. "I wrote a script I loved and I turned it in and then that’s the last... I haven’t even seen it. I’m excited to see it and see what James did with it. But that’s James’ film, and I’m so excited to see what he made."
It remains to be seen how much of Flanagan's vision for Clayface makes it into the movie. Still, he's moved on to bigger, and perhaps better, things. The prolific showrunner remains eager to reboot The Dark Tower, telling us he's doing his best to make it a reality.
"I’m trying so hard. Yeah. Believe me, I’m not the one standing in its way. I promise," Flanagan said. "But yes, that’s my sincere, sincere hope. Yeah."
In Clayface, Matt Hagen’s meteoric rise from Gotham street kid to Hollywood leading man is tragically cut short when a local crime boss’s actions leave him horribly disfigured.
Abandoned by his team and with nothing left, Matt seeks out a cutting-edge treatment that miraculously returns him to his former self, but also unexpectedly affects his grip on reality, spiralling him down a destructive path of all-consuming revenge.
Clayface will be released in theaters on October 23.