DC Studios’ Clayface has quietly lost its IMAX billing in Warner Bros.’ latest official production materials, and it happens to come one week before Supergirl‘s release, which includes IMAX screenings.
The official Clayface production listing has been updated since about a month ago.
Clayface production no longer lists IMAX
The studio’s official, updated one-page production information sheet for the James Watkins-directed horror film, dated June 17, now states that the movie will be “released only in theaters in North America on October 23, 2026, and internationally beginning 21 October 2026.”
The IMAX line is gone.
That is a change from the version WB distributed roughly a month ago. That earlier press release, circulated through WB’s official mediapass press portal and later posted publicly to the r/DC_Cinematic subreddit, read word for word: “released only in theaters and IMAX® in North America.”
The previous version of the document also credited the film “in association with Domain Entertainment” and opened by calling Clayface “DC Studios’ first-ever foray into the genre.” Both of those lines are also gone from the new June 17 sheet.
Again, to be clear, this is an updated official document, not a studio statement.
It is possible the omission is an error in the new sheet rather than a deliberate booking change, and WB has not commented. James Gunn has a history of answering fan questions directly on Threads, so if he addresses it, we will update this story accordingly.
However, Clayface not having an IMAX release isn’t something entirely new.
The IMAX Problem Was Flagged Back In February
The trail leads back to IMAX’s own February 2026 investor presentation.
On the slide laying out its “Expected Upcoming 2026 Slate,” IMAX lists Supergirl, Street Fighter, and Dune: Part Three with full billing.
Avengers: Doomsday and Spider-Man: Brand New Day appear, but are flagged with a footnote: “currently only in select international markets.” Clayface does not appear on the slate at all, not even with the international qualifier.
One fair qualification: that slide carries IMAX’s own disclaimer that it does “not reflect a fully confirmed or complete listing of all titles.” So Clayface‘s absence from a February deck is not, by itself, proof the film gets zero IMAX.
But paired with WB now scrubbing the IMAX line from its own production materials, the two point in the same direction, and the two Marvel titles flagged in that same deck have since had their IMAX shutouts confirmed.
The pattern fits
Spider-Man: Brand New Day won’t play in IMAX at all: Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, the first film shot entirely on IMAX film cameras, has an exclusive four-week IMAX run beginning July 17 that runs straight through Spider-Man’s opening weekend.
Avengers: Doomsday is boxed out the same way in December, with IMAX’s screens committed to Dune: Part Three, to the point that Disney launched its own premium format, Infinity Vision, to market Doomsday as a large-format event without the IMAX brand.
For Clayface, the screen-holder is just as obvious. Paramount and Legendary’s Street Fighter opens October 16, one week before Clayface, and Paramount has explicitly billed Street Fighter as “Filmed for IMAX®.”
A movie actually shot for the format, opening one week earlier, is exactly the kind of title that keeps those screens through Clayface‘s opening weekend.
And a roughly $40 million horror movie — the budget IMDb lists for Clayface — is exactly the kind of title that loses that screen fight.
In other words, the IMAX squeeze on Clayface has been sitting there since February. What changed this week is that Warner Bros.’ own marketing language finally caught up to it. But is there more to the story?
Bad Timing For The DCU’s Premium-Screen Push
The timing is hard to ignore, even if the cause is not confirmed.
WB pulled the IMAX line one week before Supergirl opens June 26, the DCU’s next IMAX release, and the first with premium-format presales on the board since Superman.
That matters because the DCU’s premium-format appeal is being tested right now, and the tracking has been sliding, not climbing.
In its first 24 hours of presales, Supergirl reportedly sold roughly 110,000 tickets for about $1.75 million, according to Portal Box Office, ahead of only The Marvels (95,000 tickets, $1.5 million) at the same stage, the film that became one of Marvel’s most infamous flops.
Since then the estimates have only come down and interestingly enough, they’re right in line with The Marvels: Box Office Theory trimmed its forecast to a $51 million opening, and Box Office Pro’s latest Long Range Forecast now pegs Supergirl at $45 million to $55 million, a $45 million floor that would land it below WB’s own Aquaman ($67.8 million) and Black Adam ($67 million) openings and roughly in line or even below The Flash ($55 million).
Supergirl may not even win its own opening weekend. Pixar’s Toy Story 5 opens June 19, one week ahead, and is tracking for a debut around $160 million, meaning its second weekend lands on the exact June 26 frame Supergirl is opening in.
Even a steep second-weekend drop likely leaves Toy Story 5‘s holdover ahead of Supergirl‘s entire projected opening, putting Kara on track for a #2 bow behind a Pixar sequel on its second lap.
For context, James Gunn’s Superman opened to $125 million last summer and legged out to $354.2 million domestic. Supergirl is estimated to carry a budget of roughly $170 million, with a break-even target reported around $425 million worldwide, which makes a sub-$55 million opening a real problem, not a rounding error.
The Optics Are Brutal For The DCU
That is why the Clayface IMAX change matters, even if nobody can tie it directly to Supergirl.
The DCU is supposed to be building momentum as a big-screen event brand. Instead, Supergirl is fighting soft tracking with IMAX screens already on sale, while Clayface is losing the IMAX language months before release.
Maybe WB has an explanation. Maybe the June 17 sheet is incomplete. But right now, the optics are brutal: one DCU movie is trying to prove premium-format demand exists, and the next one just had the premium-format branding pulled.
Clayface opens October 23, 2026. Supergirl opens June 26.
