Clayface Director Defends R-Rated Approach, Believes Villain Could Beat Batman

Director James Watkins is bringing a lean, R-rated take on the DC villain Clayface to the screen with a $44 million budget, a stark contrast to the blockbuster spending often seen in superhero films.

"While I’m interested in horror, I’m not interested in just doing four kids going to the woods and get picked off by an ice pick murderer," Watkins said in a recent interview. "I kind of want to get under the skin of something, I want to tap into anxieties that people have, and there were so many anxieties that were resonant in this film. Losing your identity, your livelihood, your means. I think there’s nothing more resonant than body horror because we all have those anxieties about our bodies betraying us, going wrong."

The film, which stars Tom Rhys Harries as the titular shapeshifting antagonist, is designed as a standalone story, similar to Todd Phillips' "Joker." Watkins emphasized that he did not envision a role for Batman in his film, preferring to focus on the character's origin and struggles within Gotham City.

"If there was [a version with Batman], and I don’t think there was, it was never in anything I ever saw," Watkins stated. "One of the things that appealed to me was the standalone nature of the story, like Joker. Like Gotham is a city of many million people. To play in the sandpit of is great. But if someone tried to crowbar in [Batman], it would feel inauthentic or trying to be cute."

Watkins also revealed that DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran offered him considerable creative freedom. "When I pitched the project, I was very specific about what I wanted to do with it and where I wanted to take it, and they very much bought into what I said. I pitched some of the elements of the body horror and showed some quite graphic imagery. And I remember [DC Studios co-head] James [Gunn] looking away, and I thought, ‘Oh, is this a problem?’ And he was like, ‘No, I love it.’"

The director sees the character of Clayface as multifaceted, capable of being a villain, a monster, and a victim simultaneously. "He’s monstrous, but I understand his heartbreak. I understand where he’s coming from. I understand the journey he’s been on. You know the the sort of man inside the monster, So, I think that all those things can coexist."

When asked if Clayface could defeat Batman, Watkins confidently asserted, "Clayface could beat Batman! He’s got quite a secret weapon."

The film’s narrative explores themes of identity, livelihood, and the anxieties surrounding physical betrayal, drawing parallels to Hollywood's broader obsession with beauty and perfection, though Watkins stresses a deeper, more relatable motivation for the character's transformation.

"I think there’s an element there that’s baked in. But what attracted me was something deeper in the sense that as an actor, his face is his instrument. It’s not vanity necessarily. He’s just trying to get back where he was. He’s trying to reestablish his identity and his life and everything that he worked really hard to achieve, which for me is obviously much more relatable than just a vain actor. If it was a story about a vain actor, that wouldn’t interest me particularly."