Clayface is very much a body horror blob man in first teaser trailer

While Sony has given villain-centric superhero films a bad name in recent years (Kraven, Morbius, etc.), there is plenty of reason to be excited about this project. It’s the brainchild of horror aficionado Flanagan, who has been trying to get this movie greenlit for years. While he wasn’t able to convince those in charge of the old DC film universe (the DC Extended Universe or DCEU), the James Gunn-helmed DC Universe (DCU) made room for the idea. However, a strange byproduct of this arrangement is that since Clayface is in the DCU, it’s entirely disconnected from Matt Reeves’ recent The Batman film or The Penguin spin-off, a great recent example of a Batman villain origin story. Because Reeves is still working on his Batman films, there won’t be a Dark Knight-focused DCU movie until The Brave And The Bold, which doesn’t have a release date. Clayface will be the third film in the DCU when it comes out on October 26, 2026, following up on Gunn’s Superman and this summer’s Supergirl film.

As for the rest of the crew, James Watkins (Speak No Evil, The Woman in Black), another horror veteran, will be directing, and Hossein Amini (Drive) will be co-writing the script along with Flanagan. Tom Rhys Harries (White Lines, Suspicion, Dr. Who) will play Clayface, Naomi Ackie (Sorry Baby, Mickey 17) will be Dr. Caitlin Bates, the mad scientist who turns Hagen into a blob man, and Max Minghella will play Bates’ Gotham City detective boyfriend (not a good profession for your significant other to have if you’re turning guys into goop monsters). With perceptions of the MCU souring—the only remotely consistent thing dubbed a “cinematic universe”—it will be interesting to see if Gunn’s DCU will succeed outside the realm of a certain Kryptonian.