Clayface Delayed: Now Arriving in October

Warner Bros. just shuffled its fall calendar, and the moves make sense. The DC Studios horror play Clayface is sliding deeper into spooky season, while a long-awaited witchy sequel swoops into its old spot.

The date shuffle

• Clayface moves from September 11 to October 23.
• Practical Magic 2 hops up a week, from September 18 to September 11 (taking Clayface's original date).
• Clayface's new date will share the weekend with Laika's stop-motion Wildwood and Guy Ritchie's black comedy Wife & Dog, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Rosamund Pike.

Why the October move tracks

Clayface centers on the shape-shifting Batman villain and is not the usual four-quadrant cape flick. DC Studios co-head James Gunn has been upfront about the tone, calling it a full-on genre play rather than DC-by-numbers.

"We’ve got Clayface, which is a totally different thing. Although it’s in the same universe, it’s a complete horror film... There’s not a company style... We want to invigorate people."

Given that, pushing it closer to Halloween feels like the obvious call.

The team and the cast

James Watkins (Speak No Evil) directed from a script by Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House) and Hossein Amini (Obi-Wan Kenobi). Tom Rhys Harries (The Gentlemen) leads the cast, joined by Naomi Ackie (No Time to Die) and Max Minghella (The Handmaid's Tale).

How Clayface got the green light

This one wasn’t originally on the DCU bingo card. Gunn says it happened because the pitch was killer and the pages kept getting better.

"I didn’t plan on making a Clayface movie... He goes and he writes the script. First draft is great. Second draft is even better. And then I’m like, 'Let’s do it.' If there’s quality stuff, we can find a way to work it in."

So: a horror-forward DC entry lands in late October, Practical Magic 2 grabs an earlier perch, and that Oct. 23 frame suddenly looks crowded. October just earned itself a proper genre weekend.