The Gunniverse claimed the top spat at the weekend box office as Clayface debuted at number one with $43 million wordwide, Deadline reports.Domestically it was also #1, with $24 million, just ahead of the Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything, which made an eye-popping $19.5 million.
Though the global opening here for Clayface is under the $45M hoped for, it’s still solid for the net $44M costing feature (before P&A), especially given its excellent audience exits. That A- is one of a few earned by horror titles, the others being Get Out, Weapons and Obsession. DC Bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran reportedly covered their faces after watching Clayface for the first time, literally scared by all the gross scenes. That’s what fanboys and moviegoers are responding to in the movie.
Predictably, there was online chatter from The Usual Suspects about how low the domestic opening was a bad sign for the DCU film output, pointing out, for instance, that the legendary flop Morbius made $39 domestically in its opening weekend.
However, from where we sit, the story is in the budget – Morbius had a $75 million budget while the squicky Clayface was always planned to be a modest outing with its thrifty $44 million budget. Also the reviews for Clayface were much better.
A win is a win, people. Sorry.
Some people were also unhappy that Batman did not appear in the film. Neither did Superman or Solomon Grundy. Or Detective Chimp.
Evidently James Gunn was feeling a little empowered by Clayface’s success because on Threads he launched an explanation of his approach to interconnected storyteling, in response to complaints that the DCU isn’t building an overall storyline, like, say, the Infinity Gauntlet.
couldn’t agree more. DCU is just an alternate universe; we can enter at any location or time and tell THAT story. I dislike the idea that individual stories aren’t meaningful unless they lead to something else. People not understanding this is strange to me, because Star Wars has essentially been doing this for 50 years across movies, shows, games and books, admittedly without the tonal variety. Now, this doesn’t mean there isn’t connectivity.
The Superman Saga starts with Superman and travels into Man of Tomorrow and onward, and contains many characters we’ve introduced in other stories. But that doesn’t mean those other stories only exist to set up what’s happening there. I would love people to be seeing Clayface because it’s a great, fun horror movie unto itself, not because of where else Clayface will show up three movies from now. ♂️
As I’ve noted here many times, what Kevin Feige did with the MCU leading up to Endgame was one of the most dazzling storytelling feats of all times. But now not even the MCU can tell interconnected stories. (People skipped Agatha All Along and now are confused by VisionQuest, etc etc.)
You can read The Beat’s review of Clayface here. And my thoughts on a modest movie tie-in comics here.
