EXCLUSIVE: Peter Safran and James Gunn’s DC entree into lower budget genre movies, Clayface, is off to a solid start in previews tonight with an estimated $3.5M, if not more.
Domestic weekend forecasts are between $20M-$25M, which if that occurs, would deliver the newly combined Paramount-Warner Bros its second back-to-back No. 1 opener at the box office after last weekend’s Street Fighter ($31M).
Previews started at 2PM today for the James Watkins directed Clayface which though based on the Batman villain, is a standalone story about baby face Hollywood actor Matt Hagen, who in reaching for the stars, falls short, kisses the wrong girl at the party, and oops there goes his face. The screenplay by Mike Flanagan got Gunn and Safran excited, and it was off to the races to make this movie which is coming in at a net production cost of $44M before P&A, shot in the UK.
In regards to preview comps, Clayface‘s money is higher than the R-rated Sony/Marvel movie Kraven the Hunter ($2M previews, $11M dismal opening), and not far from the pre-Covid PG-13 DC spinoff Birds of Prey ($4M previews, $33M opening). Next to horror films, Clayface‘s cash is similar to Blumhouse Atomic Monster’s recent Other Mommy ($3.6M previews, $27.8M opening) and ahead of 2022’s Smile ($2M previews, $22.6M opening). How about this? Clayface‘s previews are higher than Digger‘s $1.2M ($8M opening). Mic drop. The hope is that the DC movie isn’t front loaded tonight, as all eyes are on the potential hold of A24’s You Can See Everything following its great midweek business and fantastic $15.6M opening last weekend. Clayface glides into the weekend with a 76% certified fresh Rotten Tomatoes score with critics which is higher than The Flash (63%), Supergirl (52% Rotten), Joker Folie a Deux (31%), Shazam Fury of the Gods (49%), James Wan’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (33%), and almost as good as Birds of Prey (79% certified fresh).
Note this isn’t the first time in DC movie history that they’ve ventured into low-to-mid-sized budget fare. In the early aughts, there was DC/Vertigo’s The Losers in 2010 which cost $25M before P&A and opened to $9.4M and finaled at $23.5M domestic. There was also the Josh Brolin-Megan Fox starring 2010 fantasy western Jonah Hex which bombed with a $5.3M opening, $10.5M stateside final next to its $47M production cost. And there was the R-rated Wachowski adapted and produced 2005 feature take of the DC Vertigo title V for Vendetta which yielded a No. 1 $25.6M North American opening off a $50M production cost, and a finaled domestic take of $70.5M, and $134.7M global.
We’re hearing that previews for the Fathom release of Laika’s stop-motion animated title Wildwood is around $1M. The hope is that the Travis Knight directed movie can break double digits in its opening. The 100% certified fresh critical score and 98% with audiences on RT will certainly help.
We’ll have more preview grosses in the AM.
Tonight’s numbers are per distribution sources.