{"id":14502,"date":"2025-07-22T03:24:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T03:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/14502\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T03:24:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T03:24:09","slug":"james-gunn-describes-clayface-as-a-complete-horror-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/14502\/","title":{"rendered":"James Gunn describes Clayface as “a complete horror film”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in 2021, filmmaker Mike Flanagan let it be known on social media that he was interested in making a \u201cstandalone horror\/thriller\/tragedy\u201d movie that would center on the\u00a0Clayface character. A while after that, he confirmed that he had met with veteran DC movie producer Jon Berg to pitch a \u201chorror-leaning\u201d take on Clayface, as well as ideas for the DC properties Scarecrow, Justice League Dark, and Constantine. The meeting \u201ckind of went nowhere.\u201d But then, in March of 2023,\u00a0Deadline<\/a>\u00a0broke the news that Flanagan had scheduled another\u00a0Clayface\u00a0pitch meeting, this time with DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran. And at the end of last year, it was\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that Flanagan is officially writing a\u00a0Clayface\u00a0movie that will be part of the DC Universe film franchise that\u2019s being overseen by Gunn and Safran. A few months ago,\u00a0Speak No Evil\u00a0director James Watkins\u00a0was hired<\/a>\u00a0to take the helm\u2026 and then, in a surprising turn of events, since\u00a0Clayface\u00a0was only greenlit based on the strength of Flanagan\u2019s script,\u00a0Drive\u00a0writer Hossein Amini was brought in to do what has been referred to as a complete rewrite.\u00a0Gunn has assured that the script is still \u201call Mike\u2019s story\u201d and any changes are minor \u2013 and now, he has described the film as a \u201ccomplete horror film.\u201d<\/p>\n

During an interview with\u00a0i09<\/a>\u00a0a while back, Gunn admitted that he had no intention of making a\u00a0Clayface\u00a0movie as part of the DCU until he saw Flanagan\u2019s script. He said, \u201cI didn\u2019t plan on making a Clayface movie. Mike came in. He pitched this wonderful idea. I was like, \u2018Damn, I can\u2019t believe you got me to want to make a Clayface movie.\u2019 But he\u2019s got to write the script and who knows how that\u2019s going to work. He goes and he writes the script. First draft is great. Second draft is even better. And then I\u2019m like, \u2018Let\u2019s do it.\u2019 So we found a place for it because if there\u2019s quality stuff, we can find a way to work it in.\u201c\u00a0Batman: The Animated Series\u00a0made its debut back in 1992, and the fourth and fifth episodes of the show were a two-parter called\u00a0Feat of Clay<\/a>, which showed \u201cthe transformation of a disfigured actor into the villain known as Clayface.\u201d In an interview with\u00a0ComicBook.com<\/a>, Flanagan confirmed that his script was inspired by those episodes of\u00a0Batman: The Animated Series.<\/p>\n

Deadline reminds us, \u201cClayface is shape-shifting villain in the Batman comics and got his introduction as part of\u00a0Detective Comics #40\u00a0in June 1940. The original Clayface was a moderately successful actor who adopted the identity of a character he\u2019d portrayed in a horror pic after turning to crime. Clayface has a body seemingly made out of clay and has appeared over the years in various films, series, animated works, video games and other forms of media.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assuring CBS Mornings<\/a> that not every DC Universe film will look or feel like his Superman movie, Gunn said (with thanks to Screen Rant<\/a> for the transcription), \u201cWe\u2019ve got Clayface, which is a totally different thing. Although it\u2019s in the same universe, it\u2019s a complete horror film. That\u2019s one of the things we want to do \u2013 there\u2019s not a company style. It\u2019s not like every movie is going to be like Superman. The artists \u2013 the directors and the writers \u2013 each one will bring their own sense to it\u2026 That\u2019s what we want to bring to the films because we don\u2019t want people to get bored. We want to invigorate people.\u201c<\/p>\n

What do you think of Clayface being described as a \u201ccomplete horror film\u201d? Let us know by leaving a comment below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back in 2021, filmmaker Mike Flanagan let it be known on social media that he was interested in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[9709,9710,9711,948,96,1155,9712,9713,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-14502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-aith","9":"tag-arrow-in-the-head","10":"tag-clayface","11":"tag-dc-universe","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-james-gunn","14":"tag-james-watkins","15":"tag-mike-flanagan","16":"tag-movies","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}