Mike Flanagan waves off rumors he’s making a Clayface movie, even though that would be cool
Flanagan has shot down reports that he recently pitched James Gunn on a movie centered on Batman villain Clayface as "entirely speculative"
Aux News Mike Flanagan
Mike Flanagan projects tend to build up a lot of hype online, for understandable reasons: Flanagan has made a name for himself over the last few years as one of the more original voices working in horror (and especially TV horror), while also having a willingness to tackle big, interesting properties in big, interesting ways. (Looking at you, with fingers crossed, adaptation of Stephen King’s Dark Tower books.)
Still, there’s a time for hype, and there’s a time for tamping down the machine a bit, and Flanagan was forced to do the latter today: Shutting down apparently premature rumors that he’s embarking into the world of Batman-adjacent stories with a film centered on classic goo-faced bat-villain Clayface. That’s all “entirely speculative,” Flanagan wants the Flanafans to know, although he also, uh, didn’t say he’s not interested. Yeah?
All of this comes after a number of outlets, notably Deadline, reported that Flanagan had apparently been in the DC Films offices recently, pitching James Gunn and Peter Safran on a Clayface movie. If you’re not familiar with the character, he’s a combination of a bunch of comic book and horror tropes: A failed actor transformed into a man made of mud, capable of changing his shape to imitate basically anyone. Which sounds like it’d be a pretty excellent, potentially horrific visual spectacle, were Mike Flanagan making a Clayface movie–which, to be clear, he’s not! Yet!
Interestingly, the Deadline report also says Flanagan’s version of the character (if it existed) wouldn’t be a villain; Clayface has always operated deep in the tragic side of the Batman rogues gallery spectrum, so it’d be easy to imagine him becoming a sort of outright anti-hero. But we’re just speculating! It’s all just speculation. Nobody’s making a Clayface movie! Even though it’d be kind of cool if they were.
31 Comments
What if they just made a Batman movie with Clayface in it?
What if they just made a Star War with Clayface in it?
😐
I’ll take that as a ‘yes’!
Scott McGregor’s making it instead.
Castle ClaySkull?
When can we finally get the Chairface Chippendale movie we’ve always needed…?
The party’s over, Chairface!
Needed? Nay, deserve!
CHA
Give me Clayface in a Batman movie. I get that a super-powered villain would brush against the ‘realism’ of the Nolan and recent Reeves movie, but pretty much all of Batman’s non-powered rogues are generally just serial killers with a unique quirk. I’m ready to see the Clayfaces, Man-Bats and Solomon Grundys of the world in my Batman movies.I’m also for moving away from the grim-dark Batman tone. Give Batman a sense of humor… let him date normal-ish people instead of these ‘you and I are both damaged goods so let’s fuck’ relationships with Catwoman or Talia al Guhl. I was thinking the other day about how Prince did the soundtrack for that first movie (and had multiple songs in it), and how crazy that was. Do you think we’ll ever see anything like that again in any blockbuster movie, much less Batman?
I mean thats what the nolan movies were. Batman goes up against a league of assassins a terrorist group working with a corrupt doctor who tests fear toxins on mental patients. His love interest in the majority of the trilogy is a normal person in Rachel. The dark knight again no serial killers Joker is straight up a one man terrorist and Harvey does go insane but isn’t a serial killer. The third movie again his love interest in Catwoman isn’t because she’s damaged at all and Talia in that movie is a straight up villain. Bane again more terrorist than serial killer.
Get the funk up! Batmaan.
You want another Batman & Robin? You could just say you want to see batnipple, we understand.
Nah it wouldn’t. We need to get over this whole “the supervillain deserves their own movie!” thing IMO. None of them have really been that good, most of them basically just become “superhero-but-a-bit-more-willing-to-kill and make smug quips” movies, and for all the hand-wringing the only reason Joker sticks out is because it’s an early-Scorsese pastiche, only more insufferably edgelordy and try-hard.
I think I’d be fine with a villain focused movie where Batman is a major supporting character. There are a bunch of episodes of the Animated Series that basically do this, including the introductions of Mr. Freeze, Two-Face, and yeah, Clayface. Those are arguably better than any of the proper Batman movies.
But I agree that this preoccupation with giving villains their own movies completely apart from the hero they were created to fight tends to jack up the difficulty significantly. It’s just not what they’re designed for.
“None of them have really been that good”
None of the…one that we’ve had?
The Animated Series did a good story with Clayface and Robin (“Growing Pains”). If they can hit that sort of tone, it MIGHT work.
I literally just watched that episode last night. I think it’s my favorite of the series, along with Heart of Ice.
I get why Sony keeps trying to do solo villain/anti-hero movies out of Spider-Man’s rogues gallery but why bother when you fully control the rights to Batman and his villains?
Yeah, stupid media company making multiple movies per year using the hundreds and hundreds of characters they have instead of just making one movie every few years.Idiots.
Yuck. What a terrible idea.
After watching the Harley Quinn show I can’t take Clayface seriously again.He can look like anything , but takes his acting direction from Stephen Toast.Pretty NSFW.
My sources say Mike Flanagan is pitching a dark reboot of the 1965 TV series My Mother The Car with Henry Thomas and Kate Siegel as the Crabtrees. Tilda Swinton is in talks for the role of Mother.Starting the runor here.
And Bobby Moynihan as Captain Manzini!
Who me?
We all know the way to James Gunn’s heart.
Clayface: The Origin of Batman’s Face
“the news today is entirely speculative.”
Interesting that none of those words is a denial.
Didn’t realized until now how much I want a Clayface movie with big Darkman and big Nightcrawler energies. Maybe get some of the Invisible Man’s tone in there to ratchet up the thriller elements too.