The first teaser trailer for DC Studios’ upcoming film “Clayface” has officially arrived, and if you were hoping it would be a breezy, quippy superhero romp, congratulations on being completely wrong.
Take a look:
This is the first time DC Studios’ has jumped into the horror genre, and they decided to go all in. “Clayface” is a horror thriller directed by James Watkins, with Welsh actor Tom Rhys Harries playing the title role of the Gotham City villain. The story follows one man’s horrifying descent from rising Hollywood star to revenge-filled monster, exploring themes of lost identity, corrosive love, and the dark underbelly of scientific ambition, which frankly sounds like a prestige drama that accidentally grew teeth and claws.
The teaser gives us snippets of Matt Hagen’s life before his fall, including a shot of him on a Hollywood red carpet looking perfectly fine, followed by his face being sliced open by a goon, and then the inevitable injection, laboratory equipment, and a puddle of clay vibrating ominously in a dish. There is no dialogue. There does not need to be. In the trailer’s final moments, we see Hagen completely wipe away his own face while sitting in a bathtub, which is an image that will now live rent-free in your brain indefinitely.
The film also stars Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella, Eddie Marsan, Nancy Carroll, and Joshua James, with a screenplay from Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini. DC Studios co-chief James Gunn has said the studio had no plans to make a Clayface movie until Flanagan turned in a script that Gunn called one of the best he had ever read. That tracks, because the man behind “The Haunting of Hill House” apparently cannot write a bad horror concept even if you paid him.
“Clayface” hits theaters internationally beginning October 21, 2026, with a North American release on October 23, right in the heart of Halloween season. Either inspired scheduling or a sign that DC Studios has finally started playing chess.
