Of all the announcements to come from James Gunn’s now infamous initial DCU slate video, the project that most excited me wasn’t Lanterns or Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, or even Superman. It was the promise of a big screen Swamp Thing adaptation. Chapter one of the DCU is “Gods and Monsters,” after all. But before James Mangold has even really gotten going on Swamp Thing, we now have word of another big, mucky monster getting the greenlight. That monster is Clayface, the shapeshifting criminal from the Batman rogues gallery. And to write the project is a perfect fit for such things, Mike Flanagan!
We saw this news first over at Deadline. Flanagan, who is one of horror’s busiest creators, had expressed interest in making a standalone Clayface film back in 2021 when asked on Twitter. Now he’s officially writing the film for DC Studios. He’s knee-deep in the Exorcist reboot as well, so he likely won’t direct the Clayface feature. But the project is said to be a “horror/thriller/tragedy,” which sounds very fitting for a monster made of malleable clay.
Clayface first appeared in Detective Comics #40 back in June of 1940. This initial character was Basil Karlo, a famous horror actor who, not unlike Lon Chaney, could change his appearance with makeup and used that to commit crimes. Karlo only appeared twice initially before another character, Matt Hagen, took up the mantle of Clayface in the Silver Age. By far the most popular of the namesakes, Hagen was a treasure hunter who gained shapeshifting abilities via exposure to “radioactive protoplasm.” Six more characters held the moniker of “Clayface” throughout the next 50 years in the comics.
The character has also grown in notoriety outside of the comics thanks in no small part to the iconic portrayal in Batman: The Animated Series. A mix of the first two characters, the cartoon version was Matt Hagen, a famous actor who purposely exposes himself to chemicals to help him shape his face to different characters. Naturally, this isn’t good and it twists him into a hulking putty man. In more recent years, the Basil Karlo version has appeared in Harley Quinn and Batman: Caped Crusader.
As for what the movie might be, the Animated Series version of events seems the clearest trajectory for tragedy. We certainly don’t know if Batman will feature in the movie, though it would be silly if he didn’t, in my opinion. Why have a shared universe if you can’t put Batman in things? This would be the second new project a DC featuring Bat-villains. Earlier in the year, we learned a live-action Bane and Deathstroke team-up movie is also in the works.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.
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