By Chris Snellgrove | Published
The latest Clayface the teaser has fans buzzing, and for good reason. Everything is atmospheric, moody, and very creepy. It doesn't look like an ad for a superhero movie, and that's the point.
Written by Mike Flanigan (the spooky maestro behind the killer shows Midnight Mass again The Fall of the House of Usher), Clayface it is designed primarily as a horror film. This will be a first for DC, and this means that the upcoming film will (regardless of its final quality) become part of the history of superheroes.
However, the film is also set to make history in a very different way. DC has been trying to differentiate itself from Marvel, first by making the DCEU a dark dudebro fest and later by making the DCU feel like a futuristic, alternate comic universe. With ClayfaceDC will eventually set itself apart by doing the one thing Marvel refuses to do: release a variety of tight-and-flights films rather than ultimately turning everything into superhero slop.
Copycat Loses Everything
Back before the days of fantasy fatigue, it seemed like the MCU was printing money, with one hit after another earning over a billion dollars at the box office. As it happens, fans really, indeed loved seeing heroines on screen together as part of a cinematic scene. Warner Bros. tried to repeat this magic with the DCEU, but everything fell apart. The mainstream audience rejected movies that felt like Temu MCU, and hated the one thing that made the DCEU different: its focus on silly, humorless characters and gratuitously brutal violence.
While it overtook the DCEU (which isn't exactly a stretch), the MCU's shine eventually wore off. These films stopped collecting money, and other projects actually loss money. The usual description is epic fatigue, but I have a theory that audiences hate “big” while still loving “hero.” That is, they enjoy watching different types of heroes (including Daredevil and Loki), but hate the glut of movies and TV shows that end up being nothing more than flying characters shooting laser bolts at each other until they fall to the ground.
What does this have to do with it? Clayfaceyou say? Well, this movie is on track to be DC's first horror movie. And their fourth major project (after The Joker, Joker: Folie in Deuxagain Penguin) to focus on the villain rather than the hero. While Folie à Deux it was a serious and commercial bomb, The Joker made over a billion dollars at the box office, too Penguin is a Golden Globe and Emmy award winning TV show. You should Clayface prove to be the best (and currently, the loudest), Warner Bros. will have established itself as the home of superhero cinema that goes beyond the usual tight-and-flights storytelling.
Marvel's Eternal Formula
Ironically, this is something that Marvel has never really been able to do. Almost every major MCU project focuses on its heroes, who are rarely allowed to have nuance or shades of gray because that would get in the way of the next memorable, it-shirt-friendly quip. Also, the third act of these programs always descends into a CGI slugfest with the graphical fidelity of a PS3 cutscene. Marvel considers it part of their essential formula, but these inevitable shows make their projects predictable. In addition, the resistance to changing this formula caught some games and films that were trying to do something new.
For example, WandaVision it was a visionary, genre-defying TV show, but it still had a show They don't take revenge-ends when the Scarlet Witch accidentally blasts Agatha Harkness's powers. The Eternals it has an Oscar-winning director and nominally focuses on the strong intersection of immortality and identity, but still ends with a CGI-laden showdown against a Made-in-China Superman. The Black Panther he tried to check the evils of capitalism and colonialism, but the day was mysteriously saved by lasers (part of which were fired by the CIA!). Doctor Strange and Assorted Madness it was meant to be a horror movie, but all you remember is Professor X's hover chair and Jim from The office wearing a Fantastic Four uniform.
For Marvel products, it works it is impossible for writers and directors to escape the superhero formula. DC, on the other hand, keeps doing something different, including weird thrillers like this one The Joker again Seven-style forensics features like Batman. Now, Clayface is set as DC's first horror film, and its existence proves something important. While Marvel's House of Ideas has run out of steam, DC is now the home and future of superhero movies that break out of the usual formula. Its success may be enough to prove that superhero fatigue isn't real and that the public is hungry for something that Marvel can no longer deliver: authenticity. surprising kind of fun.
