A brand-new poster for DC’s Clayface movie was released, and it is arguably its best one yet. The film, which follows Gotham actor Matt Hagen’s transformation into the clay monster Clayface, arrives in theaters on October 23. Ahead of release, DC Studios unveiled several horror-themed posters that embodied the Halloween mood the movie is going for. As strong as those were, the latest one outdoes them.
The new poster for Clayface places Tom Rhys Harries’ Matt Hagen behind fluted glass, and the visual effect splits his face in two. On the left is the handsome actor with charming marble-blue eyes. On the right, that same face droops and distorts, stripped of the features that made the left side appealing. The poster's hot pink palette also makes the image pop, summing up Hagen’s story and its tragedy.
The left side represents normalcy before a gangster cut up his face and ripped his regular life away. The right side shows the cost of trying to get that life back. In the trailers, after Matt is attacked, he turns to Naomi Ackie’s fringe scientist, Dr. Caitlyn Corr, for an experimental procedure.
At first, the surgery seems to work. Then Hagen’s physiology begins to change, his body stops obeying him, and his skin begins to sag. The droopy face is bad, but it is only the beginning of his metamorphosis into Clayface, whose brutal final form has already been shown in the animated series Creature Commandos. The new poster captures that descent in a single image, making it stand above the earlier releases.
The first Clayface poster leaned mostly into gore. It showed Hagen’s side profile as he opened his jaw wide in agony, while his melting, clay-like skin formed vertical lines connecting his upper lip to his jaw and partly covering his open mouth. Later posters told other parts of the story. One put Hagen on the cover of Gotham’s Most Glazed magazine as a rising star.
Another poster moved him to the front page of the Gotham Gazette under the headline "Actor Matt Hagen Brutally Attacked!" with the image warped so the headline and half his face appeared to drip away like melted butter.
A third poster focused on the experimental procedure, using another magazine cover to spotlight Dr. Corr’s expertise in regenerative medicine, and like the Gazette image, it is visibly distorted.
Before this latest design, the Clayface-related poster that drew the most attention was fan-made. Shared by creator Bosslogic on Instagram, the image depicted Hagen as a wall painting, with his face melting away in greater detail than in the official releases.
DC Studios Co-CEO James Gunn was so impressed by the image that he shared his admiration in the comments section, saying, "love this." The official Clayface movie account also reposted it.
Those posters were strong, but the new one is superior because it tells Hagen’s entire fall in a single frame and captures the character’s duality. Hagen is an actor, so his face is both his livelihood and a major part of his public image. Losing that is part of what makes Clayface such a tragic story, and the new poster paints that picture well.
Will Clayface’s Marketing Show Matt Hagen's Final Form?
The posters so far, like the trailers, show different stages of Hagen’s story and transformation while withholding his completed Clayface look. Another poster revealing that final form in live action would have been intriguing, but DC has avoided it for good reason. The film is body horror, and the genre traditionally saves the full metamorphosis for the movie's final act.
David Cronenberg’s 1986 film The Fly did this perfectly, holding back its most gripping transformation until the tail end. Putting Clayface’s completed form on a poster might excite fans, but it would also take away much of the intrigue heading into the movie.
Clayface director James Watkins already made it clear that he has no plans to show "the shark," sharing his strong belief in the "power of mystery" with Entertainment Weekly:
"You don’t want to show the shark. I think people give away too much… I believe in the power of mystery and the power of suggestion and the power of people putting two and two together. I think it’s more fun."
Watkins is a horror veteran who cut his teeth on films like Eden Lake and Speak No Evil, so it is no surprise that he is taking a more withholding approach with Clayface’s final reveal. Fans who want to see Hagen’s completed transformation will have to wait for theaters on October 23.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
