If you are a James Gunn fan, you have been following the new DC Universe a lot and probably can’t wait to see what they are going to do with Clayface. Since Superman was released last year, things have been developing very quickly. The third feature film within the DCU will be coming soon, and it is all about Clayface, who may be among the strangest and most disturbing villains Batman has ever faced.
The movie will come out on October 23, 2026, which is right before Halloween, and the first footage was shown at CinemaCon less than a week ago. So now, if any of you are still wondering who Clayface is and what kind of ability he has, here is all the information you will ever need.
This will be a body horror film that revolves around a struggling actor (Matt Hagen) who gets his face mutilated by a gangster, and ultimately seeks out a scientist in order to save it. The scientist turns his body into something strange, and thus, Clayface was born.
Tom Rhys Harries stars as Matt Hagen, Naomi Ackie as Dr. Caitlin Bates (the scientist who changed him), and Max Minghella as a Gotham City Police Detective. The film was directed by James Watkins, with the script written by Hossein Amini, based on earlier drafts by Mike Flanagan (horror writer).
According to James Gunn, during his interview with CBS Mornings, the film is completely different from Superman and Supergirl. He stated that while it is set in the same universe, it is a horror film.
So what can Clayface actually do?
This is where things get genuinely wild. Clayface is not your typical villain who just punches hard or shoots lasers. His powers come from the fact that his entire body is now made of a clay-like substance, and that opens up a lot of very disturbing possibilities.
He has the ability to change his shape at will, which makes him a dangerous and unpredictable opponent to face. He can also perfectly copy the appearance of other people, which means he can walk around looking like literally anyone. That is what makes him so threatening, as you never quite know if the person you are talking to is actually who they say they are.
In the first footage shown at CinemaCon, the trailer showed Matt Hagen in a hospital bed, bloody and bandaged, before the chemicals take over his body. His face melts repeatedly in the footage; at times, he is shown without an eye or a mouth, and in the final shot, he is sitting in a bathtub and simply wipes his entire face away like it is putty. It is deeply unsettling, and that seems very much to be the point.
The trailer also ends with a shadowy shot of Clayface forming his hand into a giant mace shape, a signature move from the comics, which shows that his powers go far beyond just changing his face. He can reshape any part of his body into whatever he needs, whether that is a weapon, a disguise, or something worse.
The history behind the character
Clayface has probably appeared in DC Comics for many years. The character was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane in 1940, and although there have been many different types of characters who carry the name Clayface, there has been one commonality in all: they have all shared similar shape-shifting abilities.
As seen in Batman: The Animated Series from the early 90s, Matt Hagen has been used in this movie too. The animated series version of Matt Hagen was a huge success, as well as a breakout character. A large part of the reason why the animated series version was a breakout character was because of the excellent job by Ron Perlman as the voice of Matt Hagen and the two-episode segment of Feat of Clay in 1992, which showed how tragic and frightening a character Matt Hagen can be.
Therefore, this would be this villain’s first live-action appearance in a movie since he has mainly appeared in animated movies or shows by DC. The movie falls under Chapter 1 of DCU, Gods and Monsters, and it would be the first project in DCU that would be set in Gotham City, before the release of Batman’s solo film, which is yet to be made.
Clayface hits theaters on October 23, 2026.
Edited by Sroban Ghosh