CLAYFACE Director Explains Why Batman Isn't Referenced in the DC Horror Movie, Comparing It to JOKER

Gotham City is getting another movie, but don't expect Batman to come swinging through the streets. Director James Watkins made a conscious decision to keep the Dark Knight out of Clayface, choosing instead to tell a disturbing, personal story about one of the city's most tragic villains.

The upcoming DC Studios horror movie follows Matt Hagen, played by Tom Rhys Harries, an aspiring Hollywood actor whose life takes a horrifying turn when a mobster brutally disfigures him following a drunken mistake during a night out.

While Gotham is practically synonymous with Batman, Watkins wasn't interested in squeezing the Caped Crusader into a story that didn't need him.

"I wasn't," he tells GamesRadar+ when we meet with him in London to discuss the film. "Because I sort of felt, like the Joker is the story of one person in Gotham, so is this," he adds, referencing Todd Phillips's 2019 film starring Joaquin Phoenix as the Clown Prince of Crime.

"It's a city of a very many million people, and this is Matt Hagen's story. I didn't want to get too cute. I just wanted to be honest to the story."

It's an interesting comparison to Joker, which proved you could tell a compelling story set in Gotham without making Batman the center of attention.

For Watkins, Gotham City was far more important than its famous protector. Clayface marks the city's first appearance in James Gunn's DCU, and the filmmaker wanted it to feel like a living, breathing place with a nasty personality of its own.

"I wanted Gotham to be a character. It's this overbearing city. I've got a brilliant production designer, James Price, he did Poor Things, he won an Oscar for that.

“We've worked with him a few times. James and I talked a lot about German expressionist cinema from the '30s with buildings looming over people.

“And with Rob Hardy the DP, we looked at cinematography and photography from New York from the 70s and 80s and 90s, where it was really a rough city, and textures, and dirt, and had neons, and this kind of dirty poetry that the city had back then.

"So, trying to capture some of that, that sort of city where the rubbish doesn't get picked up, where it's corrupt, where you can't get a break, and then contrasting that with Coast City, where Matt is initially, which is sunny, and golden, and blue sky, and sea, and there's vegetation, greenery, which there isn't in Gotham.

“You barely can see the sky in Gotham. It's always oppressive. We frame out the sky most of the time. The buildings frame it out. So, it was very much trying to land it as a character."

Watkins also revisited the various cinematic versions of Gotham while developing his own take, drawing inspiration from the wildly different interpretations we've seen over the years.

"As well as looking at a lot of non-film reference, I looked at all the films," explains Watkins. "Joel Schumacher's world is very dayglow, whereas Chris Nolan's world is very grounded.

“Tim Burton's world with brilliant production design. Trying to track those different worlds is kind of fun, but they're all versions of Gotham."

That attention to detail apparently made quite an impression on the cast. Harries recalled being amazed by how much effort went into building a city that extended well beyond what audiences would actually see.

"I kept having moments on set where I was just like, 'Whoa,'" says Matt Hagen actor Tom Rhys Harries. "You sort of normalize it, and then you remember that this is a very surreal thing to be experiencing.

“I thought James Price, the designer, did an incredible job of filling that world in and giving it an extended world beyond what we see on the camera.

“I'd pick up an empty soda can that had a very specific, niche Gotham branding on this soda can, and then underneath it would be a sticker that was crumpled up, and you'd open it up, and it would be like, I don't know, a ticket to a gig that was happening in Gotham that night. I'd had a number of pinch me moments throughout this whole process."

The production also included some familiar DCU details. Max Minghella, who plays Gotham City Police Department officer John Borrelli, had a particularly fun experience when he encountered a prop connected to Gunn's Superman.

"I went to see James Gunn's Superman in the cinema. I really loved it, and I knew nothing that I was going to be involved in this movie," he says.

"And then, quite quickly after I saw that film in the cinema, I was on set holding a Jitter's Coffee cup, which is featured in Superman. And I do think it was one of the most surreal moments of my life, because I was like, 'I just went to see this film, and there was this prop in the movie, and now I'm holding that prop,' but it felt like it was yesterday.

“And I thought, 'Wow, the magic of movies.' I never get over it. It's just a kid in a candy shop, it's so fun."

Getting to play a GCPD officer was another major highlight for Minghella, who was thrilled to become part of Gotham's criminally troubled police department.

"Look, I can't pretend I was cool about it. I was completely overexcited and couldn't believe it," says Minghella.

"I was pinching myself every day. It's just a real childhood dream come true. And then on top of that, Naomi [Ackie] and I both, even before we were part of this film, recognized it might be quite special, that there is something really original about it, but also that the Clayface character will lend itself in a very cinematic way.

“So, it wasn't just like we get to establish Gotham, and I get to be a cop, and all that stuff. It was also that we were making a movie we all really believed in. We all felt like we were doing something that was going to be different, so the whole thing was amazing."

Naomi Ackie, who plays Caitlyn Corr, the doctor who treats Hagen's injuries and accidentally gives him his shapeshifting abilities, pointed out that the film also explores a side of Gotham that audiences don't often get to experience.

"You see Gotham in the day," adds Ackie, who plays Caitlyn Corr, the doctor who treats Matt's injuries (and inadvertently gives him his shapeshifting powers).

"You rarely see Gotham in the day. There are some scenes where there's neighbourhoods, people are having fun, normal things: different shades of Gotham that allow for you to believe that people live in Gotham and make it by."

Fans can also expect plenty of DC Easter eggs scattered throughout the movie, including a few that apparently managed to sneak past the director.

"There are quite a few Easter eggs in the movie, and actually there are some I don't even know about because the graphics department, the production design department, they were always sneaking in little things all over the place," he says.

I love the idea of exploring Gotham through the eyes of someone other than Batman, especially in a horror movie.

The city has always been filled with strange, damaged, and dangerous people, and Clayface seems like the perfect character to explore that uglier side of its world.

Batman might be absent, but with a city this hostile and a protagonist whose life takes such a horrific turn, it sounds like Clayface will have plenty of darkness to go around. I hope it’s good!

Clayface hits theaters on October 23, 2026.