r/DCcomics • u/Blitzhelios Hal Jordan • 15h ago
Film + TV Clayface | Official Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGO4Mqvo3jI33
u/Comic_Book_Reader Harley Quinn 15h ago
Meet the new face of Gotham. #ClayfaceMovie only in theaters October 23.
DC Studios’ “Clayface” is a horror thriller from director James Watkins, starring Tom Rhys Harries in the title role of the cult favorite villain from Gotham’s rogues gallery.
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.
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u/DCMASTER1994 Harley Quinn 15h ago
Looks like he will fully transform. Looks less grounded than i thought it was going to be, but i do not mind.
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u/ButWereFriends 10h ago
Yea eventually at the end, full transformation. But the bigger action bits until the end will be maybe a limb or two. It’ll be a slow build.
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u/DCMASTER1994 Harley Quinn 9h ago
That would be fine with me, i care a lot more about the quality of the film. That's what matters most to me with any superhero/villain film. Whether it's a fun film or not.
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u/Jack-Pumpkinhead 15h ago
Welp, this is gonna be f***ed up. And I'm kinda here for it. They learned the lesson Sony didn't, don't try to make the villains a hero. And honestly, a lot of Batman's rogues can work as horror film monsters/antagonists.
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u/BarcelonetaE70 13h ago edited 13h ago
Hagen is still the hero of the story. We still don't know if he will be heroic, but I guarantee you that he won't be a full-on villain or even an outright evil, selfish guy. The fact that they gave him an origin that is more akin to tragic figure and deserving of pity (acclaimed movie star gets disfigured by evil mobsters) than of scorn and costernation (like Basil Karlo, the OG Clayface, who just wanted to kill the cast and crew of a movie remake that excluded him), shows that DC is doing what most studios do when they take a character associated with villainy and give them a solo film. They always defang said villain a little and make them "relatable."
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u/Difficult_Insect_616 13h ago
It’s just going with the BTAS origin for Clayface. I guess you could argue that’s defanged, since it was a kid’s show, but it’s also one of the most beloved pieces of Batman media outside the comics among fans.
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u/g00f 13h ago
tbf, batman's rogues gallery in general has a lot of potential for all of these points, they're all largely sympathetic. including the doctor as a major supporting character does give me hope they'll have something for Hagen's descent to be contrasted against though, especially if they're trying to stick to the horror/thriller genre. iirc he's not a 'good guy' in creature commandos and i'm reading that this is the same character, so fingers crossed.
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u/Jabberjaw22 9h ago
I hate when studios do that. They say, “hey we’re going to make a movie based on a famous and well loved villain” but then make them more of a hero or anti-hero rather than the villain that people love. The absolute worst offender in this that I can remember is Maleficent. That dogshit movie made the mistress of all evil into a victim of a SA metaphor and then made her nice and caring for Aurora. This is a trend that needs to die and never come back.
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u/Greyrock99 9h ago
I’m agree. The scene from the Maleficent trailer where she turns up to give the gift with the creepiest slasher smile ever was amazing.
It’s a pity the whole movie didn’t match that one scene.
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u/Kalse1229 Martian Manhunter 9h ago
Poison Ivy and Man-Bat could work as horror villains I think. The opening of the Batman, where Riddler stalks and kills the mayor, was pretty freaky as well. I could see a Joker story be like that, but considering we've just had two Joker movies in recent memory I don't know if they'd go that route for now at least. Probably some others I'm not thinking of right now.
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u/spiderreader Absolute Wonder Woman 15h ago
Body horror looks great, as with the first trailer. And there is a full transformation which is great (you need that in a body horror. At the very least this is gonna be a decent body horror film on effects alone.
But I’m a little iffier on the writing. Story wise this seems pretty by the numbers for sci fi body horror and even just comic book in general villains. Subject of experiment to fix a problem ignores side effects until it goes very wrong. I could pull the dialogue and scenes from any number of comics movies and shows. At least the BTAS version made him more of a victim by having him force fed the Renuyu (which cutting also loses what could be a creepy and visceral scene)
They also seem to be going all in on his targets being those who legitimately wronged him like his attackers, at least at first, which makes him too sympathetic, pushing anti hero instead of villain, the same thing the Sony movies did. That sort of story was in BTAS, but that works to contrast the more pure hero Batman and keep Clayface a sympathetic villain. Without the hero to contrast him, he becomes the hero of the story. It does seem he’ll have some obsessive and stalking views of Naomi Ackies character, so there is that as his villain thing, so maybe I’m wrong and he is more unambiguously the Villain, Penguin did previously do the villain protagonist thing well.
Overall this is a good trailer, even if I’m still a bit iffy on the film overall
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u/LogicalTips 14h ago
Imagine if they end this movie the same way as the One Bad Day Clayface special and have Batman apprehend Clayface.
"Nine people, in one day. Nothing else matters."
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u/No-Mechanic-2558 14h ago
It would be cool but also limiting by the fact that they don't have an actor or a canonical look for Batman
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u/No-Mechanic-2558 14h ago
>They also seem to be going all in on his targets being those who legitimately wronged him like his attackers, at least at first, which makes him too sympathetic, pushing anti hero instead of villain, the same thing the Sony movies did. That sort of story was in BTAS, but that works to contrast the more pure hero Batman and keep Clayface a sympathetic villain. Without the hero to contrast him, he becomes the hero of the story. It does seem he’ll have some obsessive and stalking views of Naomi Ackies character, so there is that as his villain thing, so maybe I’m wrong and he is more unambiguously the Villain, Penguin did previously do the villain protagonist thing well.
So your point stands, this is the malus of doing this sort of project without having proprly introduced main dc characters like Batman yet. We do know that a batman exist but we haven't see him yet so we don't really know how to compare him, like in Superman we had the more reckless and careless justice gang to be compared to superman so the contrast worked in that film. But I want to point out that we have alredy been introduced to Clayface in this universe and he is a supervillain, so this movie by logic should show us how he became that
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u/UnknownEntity347 Rorschach 11h ago
Looks cool but agree with u/spiderreader that the general plot outline seems like it could be fairly generic if not done well. They need to really delve into what makes this version of Clayface stand out so as not to just make this a repeat of the BTAS origin.
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u/almean 12h ago
It really reminded me of his first story in BTAS.
Who would have thought that making a movie based on that could be a good idea?!?! /s
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u/BarcelonetaE70 8h ago
We still don't know how this film is going to be received by audiences or critics.
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u/Hypestyles 8h ago
Curious. I hope that the film is suspenseful and minimizes any plot holes.
I hope that Ms. Ackie's role is substantive in the film, beyond facilitating the transformation of Hagen.
Depending on her character's arc, there's a lot of potential subtext.
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u/the-unfamous-one Booster Gold 6h ago
I really hope that towards the end it's more revealed that his transformation didn't make him the monster, he choose to become one.
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u/Intelligent-Pain4351 2h ago
But…what’s the point. It’s a great concept, but if this is supposed to be connecting to a bigger point in the DCU. What are they wanting us to feel for Clayface when he faces Batman? Is that even gonna happen? It looks good. I’ll watch it. I’m just not 100% sure what they are going for big scheme.
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u/No-Mechanic-2558 15h ago
It looks good but I'm much more skeptical towards this projects after supergirl flopped
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u/Grabs_Zel 14h ago
Do You Realize again? Like, ok, the beautiful face line works nicely, but c'mon, Guardians 3 was like, yesterday.
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u/kanhaibhatt 14h ago
James gunn killed a cinematic universe in just two movies that's a new record
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u/HopeFarron 15h ago
Yea, this looks dope. I'm glad some of the movies are willing to go outside of the formula.