DC's Low-Budget Horror Bet 'Clayface' Clears $80 Million, a Pointed Contrast to 'Supergirl'

DC Studios' R-rated horror film "Clayface" held up through its second weekend in North American theaters, taking in roughly $11 million from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1 and pushing its worldwide total past $83 million, according to data published by Box Office Mojo. The figure is modest by the standards of a franchise built around Superman and Batman, but inside Warner Bros. Discovery it is being treated as evidence that the comic-book studio can still turn a profit without spending a quarter-billion dollars to do it.

The Numbers

"Clayface," distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, opened domestically on Oct. 23 to $24 million and roughly $43 million worldwide. Its second-weekend total of about $11 million amounts to a decline of close to 54 percent, in line with ordinary horror-movie drop-offs rather than the steeper falls that hit some recent DC releases. By Nov. 1, cumulative domestic receipts stood at $44.7 million, with another $38.9 million from international markets, for a worldwide total of $83.6 million, per the same Box Office Mojo weekend chart. The Numbers lists the production budget at $40 million, within the $30 million to $44 million range reported before release.

Audiences responded far more warmly than critics. The film carries an A- grade from the market-research firm CinemaScore and a 94 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, against a 77 percent score from critics across 210 reviews. The site's critics consensus calls the film a "creepy, satisfying revenge thriller" that takes a while to find its footing while "carving out a unique identity for itself in the DCU."

A Smaller Bet, by Design

"Clayface" reimagines a decades-old Batman villain as the center of a body-horror story set before the events of 2025's "Superman." It stars Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen, a disfigured actor whose experimental treatment turns him into a shapeshifting creature, alongside Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella and Eddie Marsan. James Watkins directed from a script by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, built on a story Flanagan originated before scheduling conflicts kept him from directing it himself. Matt Reeves and Lynn Harris of the production company 6th & Idaho produced alongside DC Studios co-chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran. Watkins, previously known for the horror thriller "Speak No Evil," was brought in after Flanagan, tied up with another project, was unable to direct the script he had written. The film carries an R rating for violence, gore and nudity, and it is billed as part of DC Studios' "Chapter One: Gods and Monsters" slate, the label Gunn and Safran have used for the interconnected films and series released since 2025's "Superman."

The release matters to DC Studios' broader turnaround effort because of what came before it. Five months earlier, "Supergirl" opened on a reported $170 million production budget plus roughly $120 million in marketing, then fell 74 percent in its second weekend and has stalled near $100 million worldwide, a result widely described in trade coverage as a financial loss for the studio, as detailed in a box-office breakdown published in July. "Clayface" cost roughly a quarter of that, opened on far fewer screens, and has already topped "Supergirl's" worldwide haul at a comparable point in release. For a studio still rebuilding its reputation after years of costly misfires, the contrast has become a talking point among executives and analysts alike.

The outcome also affects Warner Bros. Discovery more broadly. Exhibitors, who have had a thin autumn slate, have leaned on "Clayface" alongside the LAIKA release "Wildwood" and the awards-season documentary "You Can See Everything" to fill screens through the Halloween corridor. And it offers a data point for other filmmakers, including Flanagan, who have pitched genre-flavored contributions to franchise universes that studios might otherwise reserve for tentpole-scale productions.

Reaction

DC Studios co-chief James Gunn, who produced the film with Safran, posted on Threads after the CinemaScore was released, writing that he was "really proud of this." He noted that "Sinners" remains the only horror film ever to receive a full A grade from CinemaScore, and that "Clayface" joined "Obsession" and "Weapons" among the small number of recent horror releases to earn an A-, a detail reported by World of Reel, before he credited Watkins, Flanagan, Amini and the cast.

"Really proud of this."

The praise followed weeks of skepticism from some comic-book fans, who questioned the wisdom of building a horror film around a lesser-known villain rather than a more bankable character. Gunn had pushed back on that criticism publicly before release, defending the film as the kind of risk he believes the DC Universe needs to take between bigger, more expensive installments.

The gap between the film's audience and critic scores has itself become part of the story. A 94 percent approval rating from ticket-buyers alongside a 77 percent mark from critics suggests a film that over-delivered on genre satisfaction even where some reviewers found its plotting predictable or its visual effects uneven. That pattern, distributors say, often translates into the kind of slow, word-of-mouth-driven decline "Clayface" has shown so far, rather than the rapid collapse that befell costlier releases this year.

What Comes Next

DC Studios has not announced another theatrical release before 2027, when Gunn's own "Superman" sequel, "Man of Tomorrow," is scheduled for the summer and Matt Reeves' "The Batman Part II" is dated for October, according to a release-date report from TheWrap. That gap leaves "Clayface" as something of a bridge: a test of whether a modestly budgeted, genre-specific film can keep the DC Universe in theaters and in the black between its costlier tentpoles.

Warner Bros. Discovery reports third-quarter earnings on Nov. 5, and analysts are expected to press executives on how the studio's smaller, horror-adjacent bets are performing relative to its bigger-budget superhero releases. For now, "Clayface" gives the studio something "Supergirl" could not: a comic-book film that cost less than it earned, even if the margin, after marketing and distribution costs are factored in, remains narrow.