Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen in Clayface (Credits: Deadline / Warner Bros.)
Peter Safran and James Gunn’s DC entry into lower-budget genre movies is off to a solid start. Clayface pulled an estimated $3.5 million — if not more — in Thursday previews. Domestic weekend forecasts sit at $20 million to $25 million, which would hand the newly combined Paramount-Warner Bros its second back-to-back No. 1 opener after last weekend’s Street Fighter ($31M).
Previews kicked off at 2 p.m. for the James Watkins-directed film. Though based on the Batman villain, Clayface is a standalone story about baby-faced Hollywood actor Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries), who reaches for the stars, kisses the wrong girl at the party — and there goes his face. Mike Flanagan’s screenplay got Gunn and Safran excited back in December 2024, and the film came in at a net production cost of $44 million before P&A, shot in the UK.
Clayface Box Office Outlook and the DC Slate
The previews number suggests a healthy opening for a $44M genre play, and a $20M–$25M weekend would validate the lower-budget strategy for the new DC chapter. Whether the film legs out through the weekend will decide just how big a win the weekend becomes for the combined studio.
Also Read: Clayface Ending Explained: Does Batman Appear in the DCU Movie?, Peter Chan Rules Out AI-Generated Content, Says Feature Films Will Survive Vertical Dramas
Source: Deadline — read the full story there.
