An important upcoming film in James Gunn’s DC Cinematic Universe is set to release this month, but it’s already running into a problem plaguing many other films within modern Hollywood. Directed by James Watkins, Clayface is an upcoming R-rated body-horror film depicting the origin story of the titular Batman villain. With a release date towards the end of October, typically ads for a movie would be in full swing by now, and with a major company like DC, they’d be pulling out all the stops to get audiences interested. Unfortunately, like with Supergirl, so far the ads are negligible at best.
Clayface aims to test the playbook of the DCU, which allows films to have a variety of different ratings and genres from the start, while still being in the same universe. Additionally, this film represents the official entry of Gotham City and the Batman mythos within the rebooted DCU under James Gunn. So, it’d be safe to say that audiences should see the film, so why are Clayface’s promotional materials hard to come by?
Film marketing has fallen in quality in recent years. While there have been standouts like Barbenheimer, Wicked, and more recently Obsession and Backrooms, it seems projects that should have had a heavy marketing campaign have none. In Clayface’s case, this limited marketing is likely the cause of the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, IP restriction clauses limited marketing, deals, and announcements on intellectual property (IP) while the merger was ongoing, leading to a quieter promotional phase for DC Studios.
Now that the merger is official, there’s a bottleneck of casting and announcements that have to be dealt with. While projects like Clayface are free to continue, others that are unreleased are still in limbo due to the contract renegotiations. So far, Clayface’s marketing budget is on the lower and more horror-focused end, leaning into a seasonal Halloween theme. With little over a week away, only time will tell if this focused strategy will work in the film’s favor.
