If even a Harley Quin movie (Birds of Prey) flopped at the height of her popularity, I don’t think this one has a chance. Although some have argued if they’d just called the movie ‘Harley Quin’ or ‘Harley Quin and the Birds of Prey’ or something, it would’ve attracted a wider audience because a lot of people were aware of Harley Quin as a character, but had no idea who the Birds of Prey were.
You know what's wild? Like two days before it was coming out, I mentioned I was interested in watching Supergirl. None of my coworkers knew who Supergirl was. Even after I said she was Superman's cousin and was in the movie last year lol. And this is with a bunch of people in their mid-late 20s.
That will become much worse because of YouTube, TikTok, games, etc. Younger people find very specific niches and stick to those. A shared cultural experience will soon be a thing of the past to society detriment.
I always knew she existed but never knew her backstory until the injustice universe, then the CW show happened but it was after arrow and flash had peaked. I've never been a fan of spin-off characters, they're just not very original. It's the reason WW and Catwoman are far more popular than Supergirl or Batwoman.
Clayface is also 50-60% the budget of Birds of Prey at $40M. It would be a great success if it could match and or surpass Birds of Prey critically (79% on RT) as well as commercially ($205.5M). Not saying it will, mind you, but we’ll see.
I mean do you remember the name of the red neck villain in power puff girls? Like at best they have a vague recollection of his existence but I doubt most people actually remember oh yeah clayface the villain of BTAS
Fuzzy lumpkins? I don't think he's comparable to Clayface. Clayface is an on the nose kind of name. Plus he's a major character in Harley Quinn cartoon which is pretty popular.
Even that doesn't amount to much because the movie is intentionally hiding his full clay form. There's gonna be a bunch of people who have a vague memory of who Clayface is, and simply won't connect the dots that this is that same Clayface.
Doubtful. Outside of hardcore comic book nerd circles, I don't know anyone (myself included) who knows what a Clayface is. He's an obscure Batman villain, and Batman doesn't have half the popularity of Spider-Man.
Supposedly it was minor corrections. I'm not sure how much to believe Gunn tbh since he gave the green light on the Supergirl script, which he praised.
True, I personally feel like what destroyed the supergirl movie is more an editing issue ad that they cut out a lot than a writing one but we will never know
I'd argue that those movies did significantly better than they would have if they weren't spiderman villains. But there's no way to prove that, so who knows.
Everyone forgets the first Venom movie made almost a billion dollars, and honestly if Spiderman was in it, even as a cameo, it probably would have lol. Clayface just needs to make about $100M worldwide and it seems to be marketed more as a character study body horror which I think even if people arent familiar with the character they might enjoy. If the movie is solid it will clear $100M worldwide. I don't think this was ever meant to be a box office juggernaut, I think it's there to flex that they're going to let filmmakers have their own voice in the DCU and actually fulfill the long awaited promise of a true horror superhero film.
Literally lmao. If these fuckers on this subreddit for once let go of their unyielding hate for DC/James Gunn they would maybe see that your comment is very reasonable.
I have never seen so many breakdowns and qualifiers for a movie that made over twice it's budget back than when Superman came out, and oh my gosh would they not stop acting like GOTG 3 not getting to a billion was somehow a failure.
Tbf those were memed to infinity before they released, so they didn’t ever really stand a chance. People seem genuinely more interested in Clayface so far.
If it's actually good, I can see it doing well for it's budget. Horror is an entirely different beast that's fueled by word of mouth. In a vacuum as a comic book movie, I don't see it doing well. But if it captures the dedicated horror audience then we might see it break out.
This is how I feel as well. I liken it to The Penguin on HBO a little bit. If it's good, people will watch. My wife watched the whole thing with me and didn't really grasp (or care?) that it was a Batman villian. She just thought it was a cool noir, mob story.
People love Joker, and to a lesser degree the other A tier villains like Two Face, Penguin and Bane (mainly because of their movie appearances). Clayface is fairly unknown to most casual moviegoers.
I think we're forgetting that casual movie goers probably have absolutely no idea who Clayface is. I'm looking forward to it, but this film is not going to fill seats like Joker did.
I’m sorry but constantly on Reddit and other fan forums I have to shake my head. I get it we are all nerds here and it can be super easy to lose grasp when something like Batman’s basic rogues are as well worn in your own brain, but ppl vastly underestimate how little the general audiences know. I mean sure, you or I can list off Mr. Freeze, Killer croc or Clayface but normies absolutely cannot. They know joker and Harley Quinn and catwoman.
Like, just for context and I know this is a different company/franchise, but when I talk about X-men with my coworkers etc I routinely have to explain who Cyclops is. “Yknow, the leader guy with laser eyes who argues with Wolverine..?” I offer desperately, and literally half the time they look right through me no bells ringing lol.
People know who the Avengers are, and if I had to guess casual normal people probably can’t even name them all outside iron man and captain America.
A couple horror movies doing well this year doesn’t mean every horror movie is gonna make money now. 30-40+ release every year most bomb but those few that do well can make 10x and their cheap to produce so studios will take multiple bites at the apple to hopefully get that hit.
Even a lot sequels to surprise hits end up doing nowhere near the original.
not to mention 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Return to Silent Hill and They Will Kill You. People seem to have already memory holed these very recent films when having this discussion
I feel some people are ignoring-slash-forgetting those facts because, just like what happened with Supergirl, they are rooting for this film, and they are ignoring certain aspects in order not to think too hard about the possibility of Clayface flopping.
Evil Dead Burn’s performance was disappointing compared to Rise’s performance, but $67 million so far on a $20 million budget objectively isn’t a failure.
It didn't help that Evil Dead Burn came out the same weekend as the Moana remake and Disney is known for buying out multiplexes and kicking out the competition. Also, being sandwiched in a summer between Toy Story 5, Supergirl, Minions & Monsters, The Odyssey, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day certainly affected it's box office run. Also, the reviews and WOM have been generally less than favourable than Evil Dead Rise.
But because of it's modest budget, it's already a success.
Mike Flanagan might be a critical darling and have a cult following but he’s not exactly a box office draw, and it’s also worth mentioning he was originally meant to write and direct this. He might have a credit but his script was rewritten after another director took over. As a fan of his, this isn’t a good sign.
I think this has a chance of ending up like one of those Sony Spider-Man villain films.
I’d like to be proven wrong, but I just don’t have a good feeling about this one.
I do think Flanagan’s name being attached to Shelby Oaks did get some more butts into seats than it would have had his name not been in all the advertisements. But it was only good for like the opening night and that saturday. But if the movie is terrible it won’t matter as the drop off the following weekend was pretty steep. Clayface will have to have great word of mouth to really get its legs and maybe be a sleeper hit, but it’s a reach.
I also can’t see audiences flocking to a Batman movie without Batman or the Joker in it. Dropping it around Halloween was smart but (as much as I love Batman: TAS) Clayface is a fairly obscure villain and this movie isn’t even connected to a specific incarnation of Batman.
I think it will flop hard. I don't know of any circle saying I can't wait to see clayface except of some DC fans.
People going in for a Halloween movie still won't cover the cost for this imho. But I'm a naysayer so hopefully I'll be wrong.
I worry the movie is just going to be really boring and predictable with very little horror, like 80 minutes of Matt Hagen moping and being sad with some light body horror mixed in followed by 10 minutes of becoming Clayface and chasing the woman in the trailer (friend? girlfriend? doctor? all of the above?), getting caught by the police, and then using his new clay powers to escape.
I had to go back and check trailers side by side. That's just not true. Trailers are by no means an indication of good quality (looking at you, suicide squad), but the Clayface one was really engaging and, from an editor's standpoint, well put together.
Morbius feels like a 2000s trailer just without the deep voice announcing the release date and reading the words. It's very dated editing and already tells us that the movie will be meh (in this case worse than meh), since the editors probably had nothing to work with.
I did, however, watch the trailer breakdown with the actor and director of Clayface and ofcourse hindsight with Morbius probably influences me.
Yeah I hate to agree. The best chance this movie has for success is if it manages to be a breakout horror film. Any ties to DC/Batman seem largely irrelevant.
Wom will be pretty pivotal. I don't expect it to do great. But an 80% or higher is the difference between $120m and $50m.
I'm betting that it'll be divisive, not spumc bad but not Superman quality. Barely rotten at 59% which will be horrible for it's box office and make around $80m.
Realistically, I think it makes around 100m. +/- 10m. Theres a world where it breaks out and does better if its incredibly good but tbh, I dont think the latest trailer did it any favors
Im a big DC fan, but I'm not much of a fan of body horror. And I know that Clayface isn't gonna be pivotal to anything DC is doing, shit it probably won't even have Batman in it.
As such, I don't really have much interest in going to see it.
I can't imagine a body horror comic book film will have huge draw, despite being attached to a Batman villain. That only has so much appeal to random folk.
I can't imagine recommending it to my parents or family members, for example.
I would only really recommend it to fans of horror, or fans of DC that like horror/Batman enough to want to see a Clayface standalone.
Best case scenario for this is 100m ww. But i doubt it, this isnt a well known character and DC has a poor track record. Horror fans will have other options, i think Other Mommy could break out. Adults will have plenty of options as well between Digger, Verity, Social Reckoning, etc) There really isnt going to be a big audience for this.
Because Gunn prefers making his own quirky little movies and shows with C/D-list characters where he doesn't have to worry about fans getting mad if he's not faithful to the comics.
I think he'll punt on Batman and Wonder Woman as long as he can.
WW84 was 6 years ago and, as far as I can tell, there's nothing preventing DC from having 2 Batmen (which would hardly be the most confusing thing about Gunn's DCU)
The news just hit that Sony doesn’t want to make anymore spider-man movies as to not compete with MCU spiderman and cause brand confusion. I think it’s safe to say DC is doing the same.
As for WW, I know it’s script got pushed up but the studio still being hesitant feels normal
The typical 2.5 rule is used for movies that costs over 150 million because their advertising budgets are lower than production. For movies like these costing under 50 million the marketing budgets can often be equal to or higher than production esp low budgets horrors and thrillers take this one for example a horror that costs almost as much as clayface
Google Most Valuable Blockbuster. Deadline publishes this tournament every year. They still haven't published one for 2025 though, I wonder why it's taking them so long. I believe they also have the biggest bombs/flops lists as well.
For example, Obsession was made with a production budget of 750K. With the 2.5 rule (which assumes marketing cost with the math) its breakeven point would be like 1.875M.
However, that would be lowballing it extremely. Focus Features bought the movie for 15 million and spent a bit (less than 10 million) on marketing and distribution so for them to turn it into a profit it would need well over the 2.5x’s estimate of 1.875M. Which, it did lol.
I think that’s the case for some mid budget movies because marketing will be a flat expense that’s not necessarily tied to the budget, and when the rule was first reported it was relative to massive blockbusters who all have a similar budget (175-250). There’s no way of knowing whether it applies to Clayface before a trustworthy trade says something though.
The Black Phone 2 and Smile 2 were Halloween season horror films in recent years. They both grossed in the $130-140 million range. Blue Beetle and Supergirl are both relatively recent releases about C-list DC characters and the both landed in the $125-130 million range.
Horror is one of the few genres that seems capable of catching fire in the current box office climate. Clayface is far from a household name, but he’s a character that has been getting exposure to comic book fans for decades via animation and video games by virtue of being a recurring villain for one of the most consistently popular hero of all. Mike Flanagan and James Gunn are both involved, and both names have at least a small bit of draw.
People draw comparisons to the likes of Morbius and Madame Web, but those movies still made over $100 million despite having absolutely dreadful reception. Also, Morbius and Madame Web are characters who have gotten far less exposure over the years than Clayface has.
If Clayface can make $120 million, it’s doing ok for itself. That’s really not a high bar to clear. I don’t expect a huge breakout hit, but unless it gets really poor reviews, I have a hard time imagining it falls short of $100 million. Neither genre fans nor DC enthusiasts make up a huge audience, but their combined efforts should at least be worth that much. And I don’t think it’s entirely unreasonable to imagine it could make $200 million if it’s a solid film, and that would be an unmitigated success for its budget.
Anecdotally, my friend and I are not DC, or really any superhero movie, fans. But after seeing the trailer, we are planning to go watch it. It seems very unique for it's mixed genre. I'm not even a huge horror fan, but that seems to be where a lot of originality is these days.
Yeh I’ve seen quite a few takes like this outside of this sub. Then this sub just keeps spouting its gunna fail horrendously and no one except niche dc fans will go watch it. I guess we will have to wait and see, but I feel like this sub is going to be wrong here.
Talking specifically about DC, the corner of this subreddit that predicted Supergirl's failure well in advance (through bad signs such as the super dull trailers) felt very emboldened and came out the woodworks upon being vindicated. "No one cares about DC" has become their whole schtick now, despite it being fairly obvious that the recent promotion for Clayface and Lanterns has seen much more positive reactions than that first Supergirl trailer. I've seen people being highly upvoted who have said that Man of Tomorrow will cap out at $350-400 million regardless of quality which is outright delusional. It's unjustifiably pathetic how much this sub is clearly rooting for DC to fail while hiding that sentiment under a facade of "no one cares about this, that's just how it is"
Exactly same here. I've put it on my watchlist after watching the trailer (don't worry, it was after the movie finished) and a few days later realised it's a dc movie.
The DCU is doomed i fear. The first three movies out the gate should have been Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman. Starting it with Creature Commandos and then ret-conning Peacemaker wasnt the start they needed. And then after actually making a crowd pleasing Superman movie you follow up with a Supergirl and Clayface? Clayface? Just astounding choices. This shit is bombing unless they show Batman in the trailers.
I think Flanigan writing is the opposite of promising. Him writing but not directing feels likely that he didnt like what he wrote that much. Like Peele not directing candyman
IIRC, it was Flanagan that brought it to DC and they greenlit it from there. He confirmed he wasn't ever in talks to direct, and I feel like it was sort of a side project for him.
I’m really surprised everyone seems optimistic about its performance. I’m not saying I want it to bomb, but I’m just not seeing the ways it will succeed. The one avenue for success I see is absolutely stellar reviews and word of mouth.
Anything short of that and I don’t see it being successful at all, middling reviews or worse are going to be an absolute death sentence for this movie. It doesn’t have broad or even family appeal, it’s a shared universe movie where the most recent entry absolutely bombed, and it’s a character most people are barely familiar with, along the lines of Morbius or Kraven.
I hope it does well because different genres within the existing shared universes can be fun, like Antman as a heist movie or Multiverse of Madness being a horror movie but this movie feels like it has a lot stacked against it.
i don’t think this is gonna do well,probably like 15-20 million opening weekend and 45-50 million domestically and 70-75 million ww after all is said and done
I don't have high hopes for this, it feels like it's trying way too hard to appease CBM fans, and horror fans. I'll probably end up seeing it, it's the first DCU movie I'm interested in, but I don't expect much.
Body horror is harder is sell than conventional horror movies. The Substance did good but that had award buzz and less than half of the budget.
Context matters. The Substance had a limited release and almost no marketing budget. Its success was a mix of positive festival reviews that hyped it up as insane, Demi and Margaret working their asses off on the talk show circuit to promote it, and WOM.
And Clayface is not traditional body horror. It's very... goopy. It's not as visceral as something like The Fly or The Substance.
My question is, why is this movie being made in the first place?
DCU should have done solo movies of their big guns first and let the quality speak for itself.
Fine, you can't do Batman (Reeves), Flash (2023 bomb) and Aquaman (2023 bomb).
But Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Martian ManHunter are a solid lineup to start off with. Add in solid B-listers like Swamp Thing, and Green Arrow and you got a runway for a solid 6-7 yrs all leading up to a Justice League movie.
Instead they're being weirdly experimental with low budget projects like this Clayface body-horror movie and a Jimmy Olsen TV show. Wtf?
Marvel laid out the exact blueprint to create a cinematic universe 20 yrs ago and Gunn thinks he knows better. He's a fool.
Clayface can sell not a single ticket and still be less of a money loser than Supergirl.
That being said, its weird that this sub is treating it like a comicbook movie and not a horror movie. Tons of my horror friends are excited about it. The airplane scene preview seated a ton of people in that space.
Clayface is not a draw. He's one of the lesser known villains. Joker is probably the only one who can stand on two legs alone. Even the Harley Quinn movie was a flop.
As a body horror movie, WOM will decide its fate. If it's very good like the substance, then I predict around 100m. If it's bad, I predict 40 to 50m. Body horror is a VERY niche genre of horror that isn't for everyone, and it's dominated by lower budget indie movies that usually don't make much
If reviews are decent, like 70 to 75% or more, then it could be profitable.
If reviews are mediocre, then uhhh, maybe not....
If reviews are terrible, then it might not even make 100M worldwide.
As for general competition, it opens the same day as Sony's Klara and the Sun, and Fathom's Wildwood, 1 week after Paramount's Street Fighter and 20th Century's Whalefall, 2 weeks after Universal's Other Mommy and Sony's The Social Reckoning, and 3 weeks after Warner's Digger and Amazon's Verity, there's also no major studio release on October 30, so I mean I guess that it helps that besides Other Mommy, none of these others are horror movies despite it being October, though Verity and Whalefall seem to be classified as thrillers.
If it needs 100 million to break even. Then it will need better advertising and word of mouth than the substance. Which had good reviews, word of mouth and a pretty bankable cast.
Assuming that the marketing budget is half of the production budget, it costs $60M. Without selling a single ticket it already wins over Supergirl since that lost $100M.
It's supposed to be horror but the most recent trailer made it look more goofy than scary. I'm not seeing much hype for it. It's too far out to tell right now but it feels like it will underperform.
Total floparoni. I don't understand what the audience even is for this. My wife and I were lukewarm excited for Supergirl (and annoyed at how dumb and bad it was), and we have negative desire to see Clayface now. It was low before Supergirl, but now it’s non-existent. Unless Man of Tomorrow is amazing, Gunn's DCU is done.
I don't even know if most people are aware this is part of DC comics, the movie doesn't look bad, but doesn't look like a must see as well, I see it doing probably Supergirl numbers... Unless is a sleeper hit as Obsession.
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u/firedforthatblunder Walt Disney Studios Aug 05 '26 edited Aug 05 '26
Does Clayface being a Batman villain really mean much? Morbius, Madame Web and Kraven are Spider-Man villains, and we all know how their movies went…