James Gunn and Peter Safran, co-heads of DC Studios, have confirmed the upcoming Clayface movie will be canon within the DC Universe (DCU) and carry an R rating.
Clayface, a long-time Batman adversary, is a former Gotham City criminal with the ability to alter his clay-like body into anyone or anything. Basil Karlo, the first iteration of the character, debuted in Detective Comics #40 (1940).
DC Studios announced a September 11, 2026, release date for the Clayface film last month. This decision reportedly followed the success of HBO's The Penguin series. Horror master Mike Flanagan penned the script, with Lynn Harris producing alongside The Batman director Matt Reeves.
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During a DC Studios presentation attended by IGN, Gunn and Safran explained Clayface's inclusion in the DCU, distinguishing it from Matt Reeves' The Batman Epic Crime Saga.
"Clayface is totally DCU," Gunn confirmed. Safran clarified, "The only things in Matt's world, his Crime Saga, are the Batman trilogy and The Penguin series. Still under DC Studios, still under us. We have a great relationship with Matt, but those are the only things."
"It was important that Clayface be part of the DCU. It's an origin story for a classic Batman villain we want in our world," Gunn added, explaining that Clayface wouldn't fit Reeves' more grounded approach. "It was very outside of the grounded non-super metahuman characters in Matt's world," Gunn stated.
Safran revealed that DC Studios is negotiating with Speak No Evil director James Watkins to helm Clayface, indicating a strong likelihood of his involvement. Filming is slated to begin this summer.
"This summer, cameras roll on Clayface, an incredible body horror film revealing a compelling origin of a classic Batman villain. We added this title to the slate based on Mike Flanagan's exceptional screenplay," Safran said. "We're in negotiations with James Watkins to direct, and we'll start casting as soon as the director deal is done. It's slated for a fall 2026 release. Clayface might not be as widely known as The Penguin or The Joker, but we feel his story is equally resonant, compelling, and in many ways, more terrifying."
Throughout the presentation, Safran described Clayface as "experimental," differing from a "traditional superhero tentpole movie," and an "indie style chiller." Gunn described it as "pure f***ing horror, like, totally real. Their version of that movie, it is so real and true and psychological and body horror and gross."
Gunn confirmed the film's R rating: "One of the things Peter and I talked about when we first got the script is if we were producing movies five years ago when we were doing Belko Experiment and all of that stuff, and somebody had brought us this horror script called Clayface about this guy, we would have died to have produced this movie, because it was just a really excellent body horror script, and the fact that it's in the DCU is just a plus."
