DC has released the first official look at Clayface, offering a magazine-style image of Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen ahead of the film’s marketing push.
The image surfaced through the movie’s official social media and appears to be setting up a bigger trailer rollout following Warner Bros.’ CinemaCon presentation, where the studio showed the first footage to theater owners.
First look at Matt Hagen
The image presents Matt Hagen before his full transformation, framed like a glossy celebrity magazine cover with the line “Most Gifted” and “Future Stars Issue,” which fits the movie’s setup of Hagen as an actor before everything goes wrong.
That lines up with previously reported story details describing him as a Hollywood performer whose face is disfigured before he turns to a scientist for help, leading to his transformation into Clayface.
Clayface footage shown at CinemaCon
The CinemaCon footage leaned fully into body horror.
Matt Hagen is shown in a hospital bed with his face wrapped, his skin red and damaged, and his expression filled with pain and shock.
The footage cuts between his present condition and flashes of who he was before, while his body begins changing in grotesque ways.
Reports described scenes of his lips sticking together, shadowy images of his body forming weapon-like hands, terrified people screaming, and a final disturbing moment where he wipes away his own face in a bathtub.
The footage also made clear this is not being played as a standard superhero movie. Warner Bros. presented Clayface as a horror-driven DC film, with early reactions calling it violent, unnerving, and heavily focused on physical transformation and psychological torment.
Release Info
Clayface is directed by James Watkins and stars Tom Rhys Harries, Naomi Ackie, Max Minghella, Eddie Marsan, and David Dencik.
The film opens in theaters on October 23, 2026, after previously being dated for September before moving closer to Halloween. It is part of DC Studios’ DCU slate.
Clayface centers on Matt Hagen, an actor whose face is disfigured by a gangster. As a last resort, he turns to a scientist for help, but the treatment transforms his body into clay. Naomi Ackie plays the scientist tied to Hagen’s transformation.
