DC Studios‘ next film is not a superhero movie. Clayface, directed by James Watkins and starring Tom Rhys Harries in the title role, opens in cinemas on Friday 23 October, and Warner Bros. describes it as a horror thriller, the first in that genre from DC Studios. Here is who the character is, who made the film and what is worth watching before you buy a ticket.
Watch the trailer
The story
Warner Bros.’ own synopsis keeps it tight: the film follows one man’s descent from rising Hollywood star to revenge-driven monster, and deals in lost identity, corrosive love and the dark side of scientific ambition. The tagline is “Look fear in the face.”
The trailers, released on DC’s YouTube channel, fill in the shape. Harries plays Matt Hagen, a Gotham-raised actor whose face is ruined in an attack. An experimental treatment gives him his looks back and then starts to take everything else, including his grip on what is real and what is his own body.
DC Studios / Warner Bros. Pictures
DC Studios / Warner Bros. Pictures
Who Clayface is
The name has belonged to several characters in DC’s comics. The first, Basil Karlo, was a washed-up horror actor who turned to murder in Detective Comics in 1940. Matt Hagen arrived in 1961, a treasure hunter whose body became living, shapeshifting clay. The version most viewers remember is the one from Batman: The Animated Series, whose 1992 two-parter “Feat of Clay” fused the two: an actor named Matt Hagen, dependent on a cosmetic chemical, who becomes a monster.
The film appears to draw on that same idea: the actor whose career depends on his face, and the price of keeping it.
Who made it
Watkins is a British horror specialist. He wrote and directed Eden Lake and The Woman in Black, and most recently the 2024 remake of Speak No Evil. The screenplay is by Mike Flanagan, the writer and director behind The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass and Doctor Sleep, and Hossein Amini, from a story by Flanagan.
Alongside Harries, the cast listed by Warner Bros. is Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella, Eddie Marsan, Nancy Carroll and Joshua James.
The producers are Matt Reeves, Lynn Harris, James Gunn and Peter Safran. It is a 6th & Idaho production, Reeves’ company, in association with Domain Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Pictures distributes.
Where it sits in the DCU
Reeves’ name is a clue that could mislead. His The Batman films are their own continuity, but Clayface comes from DC Studios under Gunn and Safran, the team building the new DC Universe that began with Creature Commandos and Superman in 2025. Warner Bros.’ press materials bill it simply as a DC Studios film and do not spell out how, or whether, it connects to other titles. Do not expect Batman: neither trailer promises a cameo.
Why it matters for DC
Clayface takes the new DC outside the superhero register. It follows Superman and Supergirl into cinemas, but where those films sell heroes, this one sells a monster and a horror director.
The release date matters too. Friday 23 October puts Clayface in cinemas the week before Halloween, the slot horror films have targeted for decades.
Rating
Warner Bros. has not listed a classification on its own film pages at the time of writing. The trailers lean on body horror and transformation effects. Check your local classifier (the MPA in the US, the BBFC in the UK, provincial boards in Canada, the Classification Board in Australia) before taking younger teens.
What to rewatch
- Batman: The Animated Series, “Feat of Clay” parts one and two, for the version of Hagen the film builds on.
- Speak No Evil (2024) or Eden Lake, for Watkins’ way with slow, escalating dread.
- The Haunting of Hill House or Doctor Sleep, for Flanagan’s interest in grief and identity.
- Superman (2025), if you want the DCU context, though Clayface is not a sequel to anything.
Where to watch
- Clayface: in cinemas from Friday 23 October 2026, according to Warner Bros., in the US and UK.
- Canada, Australia and New Zealand: Warner Bros. Pictures release; check local cinema listings for the exact date.
- Trailers: DC’s YouTube channel.
Sources
Titles in this story.
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