After coming up short at the box office with Supergirl, DC Studios needs a hit with Clayface, an upcoming horror thriller focusing on the tragic, shape-shifting villain. Ahead of this week’s San Diego Comic-Con celebration, DC Studios is ready to share a brand-new trailer for the James Watkins-directed feature, marking DC’s first foray into the horror genre.
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, spiraling him down a destructive path of all-consuming revenge.”
James Watkins directs from a screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, story by Flanagan, based on characters from DC. Tom Rhys Harries stars in the title role, with Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella, Eddie Marsan, Nancy Carroll, and Joshua James leading the cast.
In the new trailer, Matt (Harries) sees his future as a leading actor go up in smoke when a gang of enforcers violently attack him, and scar his moneymaker seemingly beyond repair. With nothing else to lose, Matt volunteers for an experimental procedure that changes his physiology. While his mind is steadily falling apart, Matt can change his appearance by molding his body into anyone or anything he wants. His new condition feels like a miracle, until it doesn’t. When the substance injected into his body becomes unstable, Matt’s anger overrides his ambitions, and he uses his new abilities to exact revenge on those who sent him to his own personal hell.
The new Clayface trailer shows a lot of promise, but I’m also concerned. Clayface is one of my favorite villains in Batman’s rogues’ gallery. If DC Studios manages to screw this up, it’s going to sour the DCU’s trajectory more than it already is after audiences failed to show up for Supergirl. In other words, Clayface needs to be good. While the footage looks promising, DC can’t pull its punches—Clayface demands an uncompromising, terrifying dive into tragic body horror. He is often an unflinching, uncaring villain whose suffering is his greatest weapon. If Flanagan’s story can nail that aspect of the character, we’ll be in business. If not, we could be looking at another Morbius situation. Every part of me wants this movie to be good, but I’m definitely in “wait and see” mode at this stage of the game.
What do you think of DC Studios’ new Clayface trailer? Will Flanagan and Watkins do the character justice? Let us know in the comments section below.