Doctor Sleep director Mike Flanagan’s long-reported film about DC villain Clayface appears to be moving forwards.
It was in March last year that reports suggested that Mike Flanagan had pitched a take on villainous comic book character Clayface to the brass at DC. Given that Flanagan has made some outstanding horror material, including the excellent Midnight Mass and the hugely popular The Haunting Of Hill House TV shows, he’d certainly be a logical fit to take on one of Batman’s more tragic and potentially terrifying villains.
Since March of last year, we’ve heard nothing else about this one and so assumed that it wasn’t happening. However, Daniel RPK (via CBM) is now reporting that Flanagan’s Clayface is in development is targeting a spring shoot date. There is some bad news tinging this rather exciting report, though: because Flanagan is tied up making the next Exorcist, he won’t be directing the project. He has penned the script though.
There’s speculation that Alan Tudyk will be playing the gooey villain. He’s already confirmed that he’s playing a version of the character in the DCU-set Creature Commandos animated series. If the movie version of Clayface is the DC Universe take on that character, then it stands to reason that Tudyk will play them both.
As mentioned, there are several versions of the Clayface character, but given that Tudyk portrays Clayface #2 in the Harley Quinn animated show, if this new take is different, then perhaps we’ll get the original incarnation of the character. As we wrote at the time of the original report, ‘we’d like to see him plump for Clayface I, a B-movie actor by the name of Basil Karlo. There’s plenty of scope in there for some operatic tragedy, not to mention leaning into some shades of fun B-movie horror.’
When we do hear more on this one, including the project’s director, we’ll let you know.
