On Sunday, Warner Bros. Discovery sent out a press release declaring that Clayface had topped the North American box office for a second weekend in a row. That flew in the face of what every box office analyst was saying, but it was a tight race for the #1 spot.
Ultimately, Clayface made $11 million compared to You Can See Everything's $11.4 million. The DC Studios movie may be a lower-budgeted body horror, but a DC Comics adaptation being beaten by a documentary this soon into its run isn't a great look.
DC Studios' response? The official Clayface Instagram account has shared a post suggesting the DCU movie is more appealing because it's only 1 hour and 48 minutes compared to You Can See Everything's 2 hours and 55 minutes. That's accompanied by a series of "memes" about the difference in their respective runtimes.
If DC Studios thought this would strike a chord with fans, it clearly misjudged how the post would be received. "Weird marketing strategy bragging that 'our movie is shorter than the best movie of the year,'" wrote one person, with others adding comments like, "Might be the saddest thing I’ve seen an official account do," "Loved the movie, but this post is next level cringe, man," and "McDonald's vs steak dinner."
One particularly upset fan declared, "Whoever’s running the social media and marketing for Clayface needs to be fired immediately. The promo was so incredibly cheap and corny, but this is just cringey on a different level; this is just classless."
Taking a shot at one of the year's most critically acclaimed releases and a legitimate box office success story is certainly an interesting move. While James Gunn obviously isn't calling the shots on this Instagram account, it's the latest example of the studio's problematic public-facing personalities (like the podcast host who told Lanterns' detractors that they should "choke on their own tongues").
Clayface is expected to break even at the box office and may even be a modest success for DC Studios. However, it isn't shaping up to be an Obsession or Backrooms-sized hit.
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.
The movie stars Tom Rhys Harries in the title role of the "cult-favourite" villain from Gotham's rogues' gallery. The cast includes Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella and Eddie Marsan, as well as Nancy Carroll and Joshua James.
We concluded our Clayface review by saying, "Tom Rhys Harries shines in Clayface, an uninspired and unoriginal movie that's too light on horror and lacking in comic book personality to be anything but forgettable. It should have been a game-changer for the genre; instead, it's DC's Morbius moment."
Directed by James Watkins from a screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, Clayface is now playing in theaters.