DC’s Clayface Movie Will Be Molded by Director James Watkins

The last few months have seen Warner Bros. fast-track a movie starring the Batman villain Clayface. After recent reports about a director hunt, the studio has named its choice: James Watkins, previously of Eden Lake and 2024’s Speak No Evil remake.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Watkins nailed his presentation to James Gunn and will now helm the film, whose script comes from popular horror writer-director Mike Flanagan. Whatever this film ends up being, THR says to expect something with a $40 million budget that’s likely to shoot later this year. Whoever ends up nabbing the role of Clayface—here, a fading actor who injects himself with a substance (not that one) that ends up granting him shapeshifting abilities—is expected to also play the character outside of live-action, as is Gunn’s edict for the whole DC movie slate.

Clayface will be the first Batman villain who isn’t a chaotic murder clown to headline a solo movie. He tends to appear fairly regularly outside of comics: in animation, he’s been in Batman: The Animated Series, The Batman (both as Basil Karlo and original character Ethan Bennett), and Batman: Caped Crusader. (Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger also voiced him in the Batwheels cartoon—no, really.) He’s also popped up in the Lego Batman games, and even came to live-action in both Gotham and Pennyworth, where the character was reimagined as a woman. Most recently, Alan Tudyk voiced the villain during his brief appearance in Creature Commandos, and he also voices the character in Harley Quinn.

Expect James Watkins’ Clayface to hit theaters September 11, 2026.

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