Why DCU Fans Are Convinced Clayface Is the Next Batman Movie’s Big Bad

DC fans are doing that thing again where a couple of well-placed nods turn into a full-blown theory. This round: Clayface might be Batman: The Brave and the Bold's main villain. The clues are thin but spicy, and they involve James Gunn, Andy Muschietti, and a very specific comic book cover.

Why Clayface is suddenly the name on everyone's lips

• Andy Muschietti slipped a shot of Detective Comics #298 into the series premiere of It: Welcome to Derry. That issue is the debut of the Matt Hagen version of Clayface.
• Soon after, James Gunn posted the same cover on social media on October 26, 2025 to mark the character's anniversary and dropped a very pointed tease.
• Then Tom Rhys Harries shared the image too, saying the upcoming Clayface movie had just entered its final week of filming.

"Happy Anniversary to the perennially misunderstood villain, Clayface. Can't wait for you to see Tom Rhys Harries bring him to life on the big screen."

The movie itself: what Gunn and Harries are talking about

Clayface (the film) is centered on Matt Hagen, a once-promising actor left disfigured after a gangster attack. Desperate to repair his life and his face, he tries an experimental treatment... and things spiral from there. Tonally, it is pulling from the Batman: The Animated Series take on the character, which is darker and more tragic than the old-school monster-of-the-week version.

Tom Rhys Harries stars as Hagen. The movie is slated for a 2026 release.

So is Clayface Batman's next big-screen foe?

Here is where the theorizing kicks in. With Gunn steering the DCU and Muschietti also in the DCU mix, fans started connecting dots: a Clayface spotlight film dropping ahead of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, plus repeated winks at Matt Hagen's first appearance, could add up to Clayface being the Bat-villain for that movie.

Plenty of people are not buying it. On Reddit and X, the counterargument is basically: stop galaxy-braining it. The repeated use of Detective Comics #298 likely happened because it is the definitive Matt Hagen cover and because this was a birthday nod, not a breadcrumb trail to The Brave and the Bold. The practical advice from that camp: expect Clayface to be a self-contained story, not a backdoor Batman crossover.

There is also a middle-ground take that makes sense: even if Batman never shows up, setting a character like Clayface inside the DCU can quietly build out Gotham lore that other movies can tap later.

Where things stand

We have a nearly-wrapped Clayface movie, due in 2026, with Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen. We have Gunn publicly hyping that performance. We have Muschietti dropping a comic-book deep cut where horror fans would notice it. That is enough to get the speculation machine humming, and it is exactly the kind of nerdy breadcrumb trail fans love to parse. But until someone actually says 'Clayface is Batman's next villain,' maybe keep expectations in check: standalone first, possible connective tissue later.