Unless you’re an unforgiving fan of Zack Snyder and his Snyderverse, there’s a good chance you are enjoying what James Gunn is doing for DC Studios with his DCU reboot. His Superman, as divisive as it might be amongst the DC fandom, did big numbers at the box office and continued that trend by breaking at least one streaming record on HBO Max; and two more highly anticipated projects from Gunn are waiting in the wings.
Amidst the hype for Superman: Woman of Tomorrow (2026) and Superman: Man of Tomorrow (2027) are ongoing productions for both The Batman Part II and Clayface. The latter will be a part of Gunn’s DCU when the horror-fueled flim hits theaters next year, but the latter, while still very much under Gunn’s watchful eye, is tied to the Elseworlds universe and not the DCU.
Gunn gave a bit of an update on both recently, via EverythingDCU.
“I’m supporting The Batman 2 team to make sure everything goes smoothly, I’m waiting for the first cut of Clayface (I can’t wait!), and approving designs for all sorts of things.”
This is great news all-around, as it appears both are moving along well with no delays — unlike the Lanterns series, which has gotten bad news, in that it will move from a projected release date of “early 2026” to likely the back end of summer 2026, following the release of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, a film that is ahead of schedule and recently had a private screening on the set in Burbank.
The Batman, Clayface Dodging Unfortunate Delays
Image via Warner Bros. / Courtesy Everett Collection
With the added fanfare and critical acclaim of Colin Farrell’s The Penguin for HBO Max, also a part of the Elseworld’s section of DC Studios, the hype surrounding The Batman Part II is beginning to reach fever pitch, and adding a mastermind from the Star Wars universe only emboldens it. Keeping pace is Clayface, a project at least one co-star in the film, Max Minghella, will push the limit of R-rated horror.
“I think I can safely say it’s going there. It’s a proper movie. It’s a really fantastic script. saw that movie when it came out, and it deeply affected me, so I was excited to get that call. I think he’s really kind of uniquely suited to it [Clayface], to be honest.”
Gunn has a tremendous amount of pressure to turn things around for DC Studios, and that won’t be an easy task when considering how poorly things ended for each of the franchises and the collective they went on to form. There were plenty of reasons things didn’t end well for Warner Bros. Discovery with those projects, but the fact remains Marvel Studios and the MCU continue to own the superhero movie genre — Gunn being off to a strong start in this very passionate war against his former ally.
The Batman is currently available for streaming on HBO Max.
Release Date
March 4, 2022
Runtime
176 minutes
Director
Matt Reeves
Robert Pattinson
Bruce Wayne / The Batman
