Superhero movies usually arrive with capes, skyscrapers and a city that needs saving. Clayface, which opens wide across North America today, arrives with a ruined face, a vial of experimental goo and a lot of practical makeup effects. It is the strangest bet yet from James Gunn and Peter Safran’s rebooted DC Studios, and the early numbers suggest audiences are curious enough to give it a look.
According to Deadline, the film pulled in an estimated $3.5 million or more from Thursday previews. That is ahead of what Kraven the Hunter managed before its rough opening, and in the neighborhood of recent horror hits like Other Mommy. Weekend projections now sit somewhere between $20 million and $30 million from roughly 3,400 theaters, depending on whose tracking you trust.
A villain story with no Batman in sight
The setup is pure Hollywood tragedy. Welsh actor Tom Rhys Harries plays Matt Hagen, a working-class kid from Gotham who has just landed his first Oscar nomination. One bad night at a party, one kiss with the wrong person, and a crime boss makes sure his famous face is destroyed along with his career. Desperate, Matt signs up as the test subject for scientist Dr. Caitlyn Corr, played by Naomi Ackie, whose cell-replacement treatment heals him beautifully. Then it keeps going, and his skin starts to behave like wet clay.
Director James Watkins, best known for Eden Lake and The Woman in Black, leans hard into the gross-out side. Critics keep bringing up one airplane-bathroom sequence in particular, and most of them recommend not eating right before it. The screenplay started with Mike Flanagan and was later reworked by Drive writer Hossein Amini, which may explain why the film swings between tender romance and gleeful B-movie mayhem.
What the critics are saying
Reviews land in the middle-to-good range. Variety called it good, gross fun that needs no franchise homework, while the Independent praised it as a strong body-horror film but a weak comic book adaptation. Almost everyone agrees on one thing: Rhys Harries, in his first big lead role, carries the movie with a raw, hungry performance that survives every layer of prosthetics.
The movie also cost a relatively lean $44 million before marketing, so it does not need superhero-sized grosses to count as a win. That modest budget is the whole point. DC wants to prove it can make smaller, genre-driven films around minor characters without loading them with crossover setup.
A crowded Friday
The bigger question is whether Clayface can actually take first place. A24’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything is expanding to around 2,600 screens and could earn $20 million or more in its second weekend, a rare jump for any film. Laika’s Wildwood, the offbeat romance Wicker and last week’s champion Street Fighter are all fighting for the same Halloween-season crowd.
For moviegoers, though, the takeaway is simple. If you like your October scares a little squishy and your comic book movies without homework, this is the one to pick this weekend. Just maybe skip the popcorn until the second act.