Clayface Is Now The Start Of The DCU Timeline And We Have Questions

With just one movie released so far, James Gunn’s vision of the DCU is certainly taking a more unpredictable direction than the straightforward assembly of the Avengers that Phase 1 of the MCU gave us. Prior to last year’s successful Superman, there’s been exactly one season of the animated Creature Commandos series, and after Superman came the second season of Gunn’s Peacemaker series, a show that debuted at the tail end of the previous DCEU only to be folded into the franchise’s new direction. Now there’s Supergirl and Lanterns on the horizon, with the Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow arriving in July of 2027. And yet the overarching narrative connecting the first chapter of the DCU Gods and Monsters, hasn’t quite revealed itself yet.

Now there’s another film fast approaching that promises to complicate things even more: Clayface. A standalone villain origin story in the vein of Todd Phillips’ Joker, the story of Clayface was pitched by horror film veteran Mike Flanagan back in 2023 (he wasn’t able to direct due to his work on the upcoming Exorcist film and Carrie streaming series), and by February of 2025 it was an official project slated to be directed by filmmaker James Watkins based on a screenplay by Flanagan and Drive screenwriter Hossein Amini. Clayface has had a strange journey to the screen; for a while, it was unknown whether or not the film would be a part of Matt Reeves’ The Batman continuity, a part of the DCU, or a total standalone film, but now we finally have an answer – one that just happens to raise a few more questions.

Clayface Takes Place Before Superman

After the first teaser trailer for the film was released yesterday, James Gunn reiterated on Threads during an interaction with another user that Clayface does, in fact, take place in the mainline DCU, but also revealed that the film takes place chronologically prior to 2025’s Superman. This is a particularly interesting point because a precise year for the setting has yet to be disclosed, and what’s more, there has been no confirmation of the status of the DCU’s Batman – no casting, no references, nothing. The movie is an origin story (focused on the tragedy of up-and-coming actor Matt Hagen, who turns to a mad scientist for help after his face is disfigured by a gangster) so it would still make sense if Batman doesn’t appear, but this could be the first official look at Gotham in the current DCU.

Back when the film was shooting last year, some leaked set photos showed off a street full of 1970s-era cars along with contemporary Gotham City media vans, as well as a detail that sent Battinson fans into overdrive: a Gotham Gazette paper with the same logo as the one displayed in works within The Batman universe.

What About the DCU Batman?

While Gunn has seemingly confirmed Clayface’s place in the DCU (citing the film’s incongruity with the grounded, non-superhuman approach of Matt Reeves’ universe), there are still a lot of questions circling the timeline of the project, specifically whether or not it takes place at a time when Batman is active. Considering that Matt Hagen is an actor, there’s always a chance that any period anachronisms could be explained away by him being on set filming a movie-within-a-movie.

Until we know more than the breadcrumbs provided by the trailer, it's hard to know just how far back in the timeline the movie will take viewers. In other words, does Clayface take place decades before Superman’s arrival? Or just a few years prior? And if this movie is set well into the past, how will it connect to the present?

This may seem like a standalone movie like Joker, but Gunn placing this at the start of the DCU means its deeply connected to the new lore. And, the fact that James Gunn loved Flanagan's pitch enough to fold it into the DCU has got to be proof that it'll be a more consequential film than anyone realizes.

Clayface will release in theaters on October 23rd, 2026.