With Clayface joining the new DCU, James Gunn is tackling the latest casting rumors.
On Thursday, the DC Studios boss took to Threads to shoot down reports that Daniel Radcliffe would take the lead as the titular supervillain in the upcoming Mike Flanagan-written, James Watkins-directed movie, which is set for a Sept. 11, 2026 premiere.
“As we confirmed the other day, we’re closing a deal with James to direct,” wrote Gunn in the post. “Because we don’t have a director yet, we haven’t even started the casting process. Daniel is great but we certainly haven’t talked to or considered him. So this one is 100% false.”
After Deadline reported Watkins is set to direct, Gunn and co-CEO Peter Safran announced that filming is set to begin this summer. “Clayface isn’t widely known as Penguin or Joker, but we think his story is as deeply resonant, thrilling and even more terrifying,” said Safran.
Flanagan has expressed his interest in making a standalone Clayface movie, writing on Twitter in 2021 that he wants to approach the film as a “horror/thriller/tragedy.”
In March 2023, our sources told us that Flanagan’s take on Clayface will not feature the character as a villain, after the writer had a meeting with Gunn and Safran, who took over at DC Studios in 2022.
Clayface got his DC introduction as part of Detective Comics #40 in June of 1940. While there would eventually be a number of shape-shifting DC antagonists using that alias, the original Clayface was a moderately successful actor who adopted the identity of a character he’d portrayed in a horror pic after turning to crime. He’s a frequent adversary of Batman with a body seemingly made out of clay who has appeared over the years in numerous films, television series, animated works, video games and other forms of media, being portrayed on the series Gotham (The CW) and Pennyworth (Epix/HBO Max) by Brian McManamon and Lorraine Burroughs, respectively. The rationale behind Clayface’s appearance emerged in comics of the 1970s, which evolved the character into a scientist with hormone irregularities.
