Clayface still hasn’t turned a profit — and its timing with James Gunn’s exit couldn’t be worse

Let’s dig into this: Clayface, the latest DCU venture, is in cinemas right now and making headlines, but not, unfortunately, for the sort of reasons DC would have hoped. Turns out the film’s box office haul is leaving executives with a bit of a headache, and all of this awkward timing lands just after James Gunn and Peter Safran abruptly quit their roles at DC Studios. You couldn’t script it better for drama, honestly.

Clayface has taken $110 million globally at the box office, but that’s still short of turning a profit for DC.

The odd bit is, Clayface had the leanest budget of any DCU film so far (a grand total of $44 million, which, these days, is practically shoestring for a comic book movie). The hope was that the modest spending would translate to easy returns. No such luck. According to a fresh Variety piece, DC insiders now reckon all the downstream cash—so, streaming, home release, and so on—still won’t be enough to shove the film into the black. If you’d clocked the earlier whispers saying the film had already broken even, apparently that was a fairytale.

And now we get the added twist: James Gunn was apparently keen to steer the DCU toward more films along these lines—think stranger, more horror-tinged character studies—not just endless heroes in capes. Whether that plan survives his departure is anyone’s guess.

What’s actually in the film?

If you’re not caught up, Clayface sticks with Matt Hagen (played by Tom Rhys Harries), a well-known Gotham actor whose career goes off the rails after a nasty attack leaves him disfigured. Cue an experimental treatment, a slide toward the grotesque, and the birth of one of DC’s more twisted villains. It’s Gotham but without Batman turning up to nick the spotlight—this is all Hagen’s show. James Watkins directs from a script put together by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, delivering the DCU’s first R-rated outing, so expect it to lean into horror more than the usual tights-and-justice drama.

The Rotten Tomatoes score is currently at a healthy 78%, based on 229 critic reviews.

One other tidbit: Clayface wasn’t part of the DCU’s original roadmap, so it always felt a bit out on its own, especially compared to more conventional projects like Superman or Supergirl. It focuses on the gnarly body-horror DNA of the character rather than fighting to slot into the usual franchise machinery. And even if the cash isn’t marvellous, the critics are more forgiving for now. As for whether this version of Clayface gets another outing in the ever-wobbly DC cinematic landscape—watch this space.