In the wake of Supergirl‘s box office disappointment, it was perhaps surprising to learn that DC Studios weren’t putting on a panel at this year’s Comic-Con, passing up the opportunity to show footage or present the cast from James Gunn’s currently-shooting Man Of Tomorrow as a show of strength in the still-fledgling DCU.
However, it turns out that the studio was represented in San Diego after all at Thursday’s Jim Lee & Friends panel, which rapidly turned into a case of Clayface & Chums, as director James Watkins and star Tom Rhys Harries joined Lee – the superstar artist and numero-uno grande-fromage at DC Comics – on stage to talk about their body horror movie that will become the third movie in the DCU when it opens later in the year. “It’s not a superhero movie,” said Watkins. “It’s a supervillain story. But really, for me, the more you relate to these characters as real people, the more you relate to the horror.”
“It gets pretty primal very quickly.”
The film revolves around Matt Hagen (Rhys Harries), an actor on the cusp of superstardom who is then disfigured in a brutal attack. Career and life in tatters, he turns to Naomi Ackie’s scientist, Caitlyn Corr, for help. Which she gives him, via an experimental process that restores his good looks. Only they’re not quite permanent, with Hagen embarking on a homicidal rampage of revenge as his face, and other features, begins to quite literally shift and warp.
The trailer that was just released this week hints at the squirm-inducing fun that Watkins and co. have in store, with one scene involving Matt on a plane beset by turbulence, seemingly set to have audiences watching through their fingers. But Watkins said that there will be gags. “The more dark you have, the more light you want to have,” he said, a theme on which Rhys Harries expanded. “Humour and fear are sort of like bedfellows, aren’t they?” he mused.
Clayface is a character whose chameleonic abilities make him a very interesting member of Batman’s rogues gallery. If, and when, Batman shows up in the DCU, theirs could be an interesting – and perhaps even literal – face-off. But for now, the focus is firmly on Rhys Harries, on Matt Hagen, and on establishing this tragic figure as a force to be reckoned with. “It gets pretty primal very quickly,” says Rhys Harries. “It’s ultimately about a loss of identity and how desperate any of us would get with that stripping of identity. It’s fairly fruitful psychological ground.”
We’ll find out just how fruitful when the film opens in October. For more on Clayface, check out Empire’s exclusive video interviews on Instagram.
Stay tuned for more coming soon from San Diego Comic-Con 2026
