After weeks of hypothesis and a shortlist of high-profile contenders, the lead position in DC Studios’ Clayface has formally been forged.
Whereas names like Jack O’Connell, Tom Blyth, Leo Woodall, and George MacKay had been reportedly within the operating, DC Studios co-head James Gunn has confirmed that Welsh actor Tom Rhys Harries will play the tragic villain within the upcoming movie after it was reported by Deadline.
In response to The Wrap’s Umberto Gonzalez, Harries is about to painting the Matt Hagen incarnation of Clayface, a personality rooted in DC Comics lore as an adventurer-turned-monster after a run-in with a radioactive pool of protoplasm.
Nonetheless, it stays unclear how the movie will mix comedian continuity with the character’s extra recognizable origin from Batman: The Animated Sequence, the place Hagen was an actor who turned a shape-shifting horror after being uncovered to a poisonous facial cream concocted by Roland Daggett.
Flanagan beforehand opened up concerning the DC venture and confirmed that his model of Clayface was closely impressed by the acclaimed two-part Batman: The Animated Sequence episode “Feat of Clay.”
When requested if his script was impressed by that, Flanagan mentioned: “In fact it was. I imply that’s the excellent [story]. ‘Feat of Clay,’ Ron Perlman, to me, that’s it. That two-parter knocked me out. The quick reply is that’s completely that’s what impressed my script.
“That’s the world I needed to reside in. Batman: The Animated Sequence once I was rising up was my Batman. As a lot as [Michael] Keaton was my Batman, The Animated Sequence actually was my Batman.”
Harries is probably not a family identify, however his previous credit embrace Apple TV+’s Suspicion, The Gents, and the motion thriller Kandahar. A graduate of the Royal Welsh Faculty of Music & Drama, Harries made his West Finish debut in Jez Butterworth’s Mojo, sharing the stage with Colin Morgan, Rupert Grint, and Ben Whishaw.
James Gunn and Peter Safran are producing the movie alongside The Batman director Matt Reeves. Clayface is being helmed by See No Evil director James Watkins. The primary draft of the script was penned by horror mastermind Mike Flanagan (The Lifetime of Chuck), earlier than being handed off to Drive author Hossein Amini for rewrites.
So what sort of Clayface are we getting right here? Gunn beforehand mentioned: “One of many issues Peter and I talked about once we first received the script is that if we had been producing motion pictures 5 years in the past, like once we had been doing Belko Experiment and all of that stuff, and anyone had introduced us this horror script referred to as Clayface about this man, we’d have died to have produced this film.
“As a result of it was only a actually glorious physique horror script. And the truth that it is within the DCU is only a plus. Then we’ve got Clayface: pure [frick]ing horror. Like completely actual. Their model of that film, it’s so actual and true and psychological and physique horror and gross. It’s undoubtedly R-rated.”
Clayface will soften into theaters on September 11, 2026.
