DC Studios‘ lifted the veil on Clayface inside Hollywood Legion Theater in Los Angeles on Tuesday night. The world premiere delivered a thrill for audiences eager to see how the comic book villain’s origin story plays on the big screen but it was also a momentous occasion for DC chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran.
Clayface marks the third official film in their DC Universe continuity — following the solid hit Superman and the major fail Supergirl — and the first to be released under new boss David Ellison following Paramount Skydance‘s blockbuster acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery to form the new mega Skydance entity. The red carpet event marked Gunn and Safran’s first public outing since they were told to “keep doing what you’re doing” in being invited by Ellison to stay in their posts as co-chairmen and co-CEOs of DC Studios. The duo report directly to him.
Needless to say, it came up as a topic of conversation during their respective interviews with The Hollywood Reporter.
“It’s exciting,” Safran said of the new Skydance era. “James and I had this bigger story that we wanted to tell when we started four years ago. We were just getting started telling it, so the fact that we now have the opportunity to do so with even more resources at our fingertips, with an even greater reach is really exciting for us. There’s a lot coming up.”
Safran rolled through their slate, which includes the recently released full season of Lanterns, Clayface, Man of Tomorrow in post-production with Gunn at the helm, Batman Part II in production (with Steven Soderbergh jumping in to help Matt Reeves), The People v. Gorilla Grodd in production, and more TBD.
“We just feel there’s a lot more going on that we want to dive into. And so we were thrilled that David Ellison invited us to continue,” added Safran, who said that during their time with Ellison they unveiled a deeper look at their DC plans. “We really took him into the tent and talked about where we see it going over the next number of years so he’s got a really good sense of what we want to do and he seems to be embracing that idea.”
“David knows everything,” added Gunn, who recently revealed that he’s also writing a new project while juggling post-production work on Man of Tomorrow. “We told David long ago, and went through what the basic plan was. When he first brought us in and said he wanted to continue on with what we were doing, we told him all that we wanted to do [and talked] about what was happening, the secrets, where was the DCU going, and what was going to happen from Man of Tomorrow on.”
But up first will be Clayface when it hits theaters on Oct. 23, and the early response online is positive. Written by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, and directed by James Watkins, Clayface centers on a Hollywood movie star named Tom Hagen who is left grossly disfigured following a violent attack orchestrated by a Gotham mob boss. Desperate to get that handsome life back, Hagen undergoes an experimental procedure at the hands of a scientist (Naomi Ackie) that initially works only to give way to a scary new reality with shape-shifting skin. Chaos ensues.
Safran was upbeat too in detailing where Watkins’ film fits in on the roster. “We always talked about the idea that a DC slate should have tremendous scope of tones and vibes and scales and scopes and budget levels. The fact that we get to make a DC movie that is a pure body horror movie, that is a dream come true,” he said of the film, which casts Tom Rhys Harries in the title role and reportedly cost in the $30 million range. “James [Gunn] and I are both steeped in horror backgrounds. The fact that we get to make a horror movie and wrap it in the DC packaging with the great mythology of a classic Batman villain, that is really what we came out to do. James Watkins delivered that fully. If you don’t know the character, if you don’t know the comics, it doesn’t matter. You will love it just as a great horror movie.”
Producer Lynn Harris, who serves as Reeves’ producing partner, was a long tenured executive at both New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Pictures before moving on to become a producer on the lot. That means she navigated many changes in the corporate structure, and like Gunn and Safran, she was optimistic about the new Skydance regime that includes Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein as the co-chairs of the motion picture group.
“We do have new bosses. It’s shifting and changing and always has. There’s always been this moment of, ‘Oh my God, there’s a new buyer.’ Or, ‘Oh my God, there’s a new owner. Are we shrinking? Is the movie business going to be challenged forever?’ And the truth of the matter is that David Ellison, Dana, Josh, they’re all people who love movies.”
Watkins was equally unfazed. “All of it is outside noise,” he said. “All that I can do is make the best movie I can, and the rest is out of your control. But I’m excited for the movie. We’ve been getting good responses and I hope it really connects with people.”
