Clayface opens before Matt Reeves's paused Batman sequel — and Reeves and Gunn disagree on its origin
One man pitched it, another built it into his universe. The man who actually wrote it says he hasn't even seen it.
Nine days before Clayface opens, Matt Reeves has put a date on its birth. In a Warner Bros. press-kit interview picked up by The Playlist on 13 October, Reeves said Mike Flanagan came to him as a long-time fan of the character, wanting to make a horror film with Clayface at its core, and that the pair started developing it before James Gunn and Peter Safran took over DC Studios in late 2022. By Reeves's account, it was one of the first projects he later brought to the new bosses.
Reeves did not direct it. James Watkins (Speak No Evil) did, from a script by Flanagan and Hossein Amini, with Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen, an actor whose face stops behaving. Reeves is a producer through his company 6th & Idaho, as announced back in December 2024. The film opens worldwide on 23 October, rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, language, some nudity and brief drug use.
Two versions of the same film
James Gunn told the story differently, and earlier. Asked on Threads whether Clayface had ever been developed with Reeves's Batman films in mind, Gunn said no: it was in the DCU from the first draft. He has also argued that the character sits well outside the grounded, non-superpowered Gotham Reeves built for Robert Pattinson.
The two accounts are not necessarily a contradiction:
- Reeves's version: the idea started with him and Flanagan, before the current DC Studios existed.
- Gunn's version: the script was written for the DCU from its first draft.
- The gap between them: a pitch is not a draft. Flanagan's script could easily have been written after Gunn and Safran arrived, which would make both men right.
Flanagan himself has stepped back from the argument entirely. His line on the finished film is "I haven't even seen it", which is about as far from a custody battle as a credited writer can get.
Read more: The Batman Part II is paused but still dated 2028 — even Batman won't vouch for it
Fans have spotted the same tension. On r/DC_Cinematic, the top comment under the Reeves story put the obvious question:
"If Gunn and Safran hadn't come in and started the DCU, would Clayface have been a standalone movie like Joker? A CGI monster wouldn't fit into the Gotham that Reeves created."
— top comment on r/DC_Cinematic
To be fair, Reeves has always talked up the grounded version of every Batman villain, and a man whose skin turns to wet clay is a bit of a stretch for that Gotham. Whoever started it, the film that reaches cinemas is a DCU horror film.
The sequel still waiting
The awkward part is the calendar. The Batman came out in March 2022, and The Batman Part II finally started shooting in London in June 2026. In early October, production was paused while Reeves deals with a family matter, and Pattinson's only update so far is that they are "pausing for a little bit". The film has not been cancelled, and its 18 February 2028 release date formally still stands.
So the project Reeves says he helped start will be in cinemas more than two years before his own sequel, on current dates, and in a different universe. Gunn gets a horror film for his universe; Reeves gets a producer credit and an origin story of his own.
Reeves says Clayface started with him. It opens in Gunn's universe, while his own Batman waits for a restart date.
Clayface opens on 23 October. The Batman Part II is still pencilled in for February 2028.
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