Clayface is the sad-eyed villain of our nightmares

Matt Reeves’ The Batman might be my favorite superhero movie of all time. I know, I know, so controversial and brave of me to say out loud. It just understands the mythological nature of superheroes so well, and Reeves’ Batman is such a Gothic weirdo virgin loser, I love him. He is the natural endpoint of taking Batman seriously, not a breathy-voiced shadow ninja, but a glue-eating, marker-smelling kindergarten failure of a man, doodling his way into oblivion, journaling his Night Thoughts and driving everyone around him absolutely insane, each for their own specific reasons. Nobody has the same gripe about Bruce Wayne. He annoys everyone in very specific, highly individualized ways.

Reeves’ Bruce Wayne, embodied by Robert Pattinson in maximum Tragic Loser Mode, is a man so isolated by grief and money that his eccentricity has tipped over into Everyone Else’s Problem. I remain committed to the idea that everyone in Gotham City knows Bruce Wayne is Batman, but he’s such a pathetic wet cat of a man no one has the heart to stop him. And hell, maybe he’ll actually do something about the corruption in this goddamn town. Everyone needs a hobby. Bruce Wayne’s is Doing Something About It. Good for him.

The Matt Reeves Bat-verse Expansion Pack has been stellar so far, too. The Penguin is great. Colin Farrell is living his best unhinged actor life, making himself miserable in a full-body prosthetic that frees him from his beauty to play a desperate scrabbler rising to power in the vacuum Batman accidentally created because Bruce Wayne is actually a sh-t detective. The Penguin is great TV, period, but for a superhero show, it’s The Sopranos. It’s fun, it’s deranged, between Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti the scenery is so chewed, it’s cud. If every superhero show was as good as The Penguin, people wouldn’t be burning out on cinematic universes.

And now Matt Reeves Bat-verse Expansion #2 is here, in the form of the first teaser for Clayface, a film centered on Batman villain/antihero Clayface. The teaser is f-cking sick. Figuratively and literally, Lainey was deeply grossed out by the body horror. Check it out:

The film appears to be mashing up a couple different versions of the character, borrowing pieces to create a version that fits into Reeves’ Orphean concept of Gotham City as a place that sucks hope and light into irretrievable depths. Clayface always struck me as a sad character, and that is certainly coming through in the teaser. Tom Rhys Harries, a Welsh actor breaking out with this role, is very handsome and very expressive in the way of a painting—the longer you stare, the deeper The Horrors become. His one clear eye in a bloodied, bandaged face is so bleak in its singular expressiveness, the physical horror intensifies to match the existential horror of his expression. He’s The Scream made flesh.

Clayface is directed by James Watkins (director of The Woman in Black, Speak No Evil, and an episode of Black Mirror) with a script by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini. The horror bona fides are real. The film has an October release date to go with the horror vibes, and, amazingly, it has a sub-$50 million budget. This is true horror movie territory! They didn’t throw $200 million at this film, Watkins got a very average horror movie budget and was told to “solve for superhero”. Necessity is the mother of invention! I lowkey suspect Warner Bros. Discovery and the remade DC Studios under James Gunn of starving Matt Reeves’ Bat-verse for resources, but either way, a low budget for a Clayface movie made as an October horror release feels right. The planets are in alignment.

Well, except for James Gunn and his intention to cast his own Batman to go with his version of Superman. That feels like a mistake. Matt Reeves is obviously on some Next Level Sh-t, get out of his way and let the man cook. He’s delegating to the right people as he grows his universe, he’s nailing the tone, he understands the mythic proportions of the DC pantheon without tipping too far into hero worship. I just don’t think James Gunn can park his ego enough to let someone else share the spotlight. He wants the DC universe all to himself, but he has to tolerate Matt Reeves because he got there first and everyone loves his Batman, Catwoman, Penguin, and I bet we’re about to love Clayface, too.

Clayface is easily the most exciting superhero project this year. Every new corner of the Matt Reeves Bat-verse we uncover is interesting and loaded with cool ideas, and now they’re reinventing Clayface to fit into Sad Weirdo Gotham. I can’t wait. Pump this sh-t directly into my veins. I have always understood Gotham City as a place so deeply unhappy, unempathetic, and lacking in decent community resources that it breeds freaks and weirdos like Batman and his rogue’s gallery, and now we are getting the loser freak Clayface of none of our dreams to inhabit that world, too. Bring me that sad-eyed villain like the last lobster in the tank at the seafood restaurant. I want to behold his horror and feast on his misery, because Gotham City makes villains of us all.