“Clayface” opens in cinemas next week, but even now there still remains some confusion as to its place at DC Studios.
When initially in development, even before DC Studios came under the control of Peter Safran and James Gunn, the project appeared to be part of the same universe as Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” films with Robert Pattinson.
It survived the transition and was seemingly shifted over to the pair’s DC Universe – the same one as “Superman,” “Supergirl” and “Lanterns,” even as the Batman and Gotham City of that universe haven’t been established yet.
Some remain confused as to where it fits in the whole thing, especially as Reeves is onboard as producer, but now Batman News has obtained the studio press kit for the film that includes an interview with Reeves who clears up the timetable:
“After THE BATMAN, I was very excited about this idea. THE BATMAN was not a Batman origin story, but what it did – because it was his first appearance in the city – it was an entree into origin stories for the Rogues’ Gallery.
After the movie, when we started working on the script for the next Batman, we began thinking it’d be really exciting to develop a bunch of stories that could be genre stories that related to the Rogues’ Gallery characters and explore their origins. And one of the things I got very excited about was the idea of looking for ways to do really cool, smaller horror films.
And [Screenwriter] Mike Flanagan came to me and said he had been a huge fan of Clayface – especially the iteration that came from the animated series – and had a passion about doing a horror story with Clayface at the core. So, we started developing it.
And as that story started coming together, becoming this sort of tragic love story – THE FLY meets this horror thriller – James [Gunn] and Peter [Safran] took over DC Studios, and that was one of the first things we pitched to them. They loved it so much, they wanted to make it one of the DCU movies. And we got very excited about the idea of taking this story into the DCU.”
Reeves was also linked to a GCPD and Arkham Asylum-set series, both of which never materialised, but “The Penguin” did with that one set in Reeves’ Batman universe.
The comments come as “The Batman Part II” has halted filming partway through production due to personal issues in director Matt Reeves’ life. Meanwhile, early reactions out of the “Clayface” world premiere have painted a good picture of the film as a real throwback to classic body horror works and pushing into considerable ‘ick’ territory.
