UPDATE 2: James Gunn responds to the Clayface backlash: nobody asked for Back to the Future, either.
UPDATE: Lanterns fans say they’re boycotting Clayface over Hal Jordan’s death.
The first Clayface opening weekend projection is in, and it starts below Supergirl.
Boxoffice Pro’s new long range forecast has the DC movie opening between $23 million and $33 million domestic when it opens October 23.
Supergirl opened to $37.1 million in June.
So even the best case lands under the movie Warner Bros. staffers called “the wrong comic book character.”
Even The High End Comes In Under Supergirl
Superman opened to $125 million in the summer of 2025. That is still the DCU’s high mark, and recall that the Netflix CEO confirmed it underperformed.
Supergirl fell off fast, finishing with just $72.3 million total domestic.
Clayface is DCU movie number three. Its first forecast tops out under where Supergirl started.
The late October villain spinoff has been tried before. Joker: Folie à Deux went in a different direction than the first movie and mega-bombed.
Sony’s Spider-Man villain movies are similar: Morbius opened to $39 million, and Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter never got close to that.
Boxoffice Pro’s reasoning is simple. DC fans know exactly who Clayface is, while casual moviegoers are “less likely to distinguish one comic book B-list villain from another.”
And that lines up exactly with what the audience awareness and interest tracking has shown: that DC fans are interested in seeing it, just that there isn’t enough of them.
Director James Watkins is coming off Speak No Evil, which opened to $11.3 million. Star Tom Rhys Harries has never led a movie before.
Nothing here is pre-sold. The movie has to be sold, and Boxoffice Pro notes the big marketing push and the word of mouth haven’t shown up yet. Well, they got less than 3 weeks left.
‘Clayface Better Deliver’ Now Has A Number
The forecast lands on the exact movie insiders flagged this week.
A Paramount insider told us “Clayface better deliver,” with “explain yourself” budget meetings already on the calendar before the merger closes October 6.
Bloomberg reports James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Studios contracts expire in April 2027.
And David Ellison told the pair to “keep doing what you’re doing,” with no new deal attached.
Clayface reportedly cost in the $40 to $50 million range, small for a comic book movie. Under the old math, a modest opening works at that price.
Skydance threw out the old math. Per the insider, making back the production and marketing budget counts as a failure. The new company expects profit.
Warner Bros. also gave itself a late start. The campaign sat quiet for weeks while Street Fighter and Godzilla Minus Zero passed Clayface, and the final trailer fans praised for hiding the monster only arrived September 24.
Writer Mike Flanagan has already told fans the finished movie “very much is not mine.”
What Clayface has going for it is the fans. Our first report in August showed the people who knew the movie were locked in to see it.
The forecast says the fans alone get Clayface to the low end. The casual crowd is the part Warner Bros. still has to win.
Clayface hits theaters October 23, the last DC movie until Man of Tomorrow next July.
Warner Bros. has three weeks to make the forecast wrong.
