Warner Bros. Discovery has shown the first look at Clayface, releasing an image of Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen and setting the stage for an R-rated body horror origin story built around one of DC’s strangest villains. The official Clayface Instagram account captioned the image, “A face you won’t forget,” and described Hagen as a “Rising star” in the acting world.
The image lands after Warner Bros. Discovery unveiled exclusive Clayface footage at CinemaCon in Las Vegas last week, giving exhibitors a longer look at a film that is leaning hard into transformation and dread. In that footage, Hagen suffers severe facial disfigurement, then sees his entire body turn into clay after gaining his powers, with his face morphing into something inhuman. The imagery makes clear this is not a simple comic-book villain movie but a full-body horror story built around physical collapse and reinvention.
Director James Watkins and writer Mike Flanagan are taking the character back toward one of his best-known versions: a working actor before he becomes a shapeshifting monster. That version stands apart from earlier takes that included Basil Karlo, who was established as a serial killer in DC Comics, along with the Batman: The Animated Series interpretation and the animated Harley Quinn version voiced by Alan Tudyk. Peter Safran has said of Warner Bros. Discovery’s superhero reboot, “Not every movie has to be for everyone, but we want to have something for everyone.”
Clayface is part of James Gunn’s expanding DC Universe, which is being launched with the first two movies in the reboot focused on Superman and Supergirl. The film is scheduled to hit theaters on October 23, 2026, giving the studio a late-October slot that fits a project built on horror more than heroics. The first-look image answers the question hanging over the character’s return: this version of Clayface is being sold as a tragic transformation story first, and a superhero movie second.