Shut up idiot. We got a Clayface movie in the big 2026
Captain America: Brave New World didn't make its money back. Thunderbolts didn't either. Joker 2 lost Warner Bros $144 million. Kraven cost Sony another $71 million. Superman was supposed to clear $700 million worldwide to be called a hit. It finished at $619 million.
So for their next DC movie, Warner Bros spent $40 million. That movie is Clayface. James Gunn dropped the trailer yesterday. It opens October 23. Same studio as Superman, same shared movie universe, same decade, about one-sixth the budget.
Superman cost $225 million to make and another $125 million to market. It took in $619 million worldwide. After theaters took their cut, Warner Bros walked away with roughly $125 million in profit. A 35% return on a $350 million bet, on the best-performing superhero movie of the year. Marvel used to clear over a billion dollars on films that cost less than Superman did.
Clayface cost $40 million. It's a horror movie about a struggling actor whose face gets cut up in a knife attack. He tries an experimental treatment to fix it. His whole body starts turning into clay. Two-month shoot in England. Halloween release. Built like a Blumhouse movie.
Which matters because Blumhouse has been running the most profitable studio in Hollywood for over a decade. Last year's Speak No Evil cost $15 million and made $43 million. Get Out cost $4.5 million and made $255 million. The original Paranormal Activity cost $15,000 (not a typo) and made $194 million. Across around 200 films, Blumhouse has grossed over $5.7 billion.
James Gunn and Peter Safran are running DC on a 10-year plan. Two $225 million superhero films a year would bleed them dry. Two $40 million horror films that each clear $100 million is actually a business.
The Clayface poster shows half a face dripping into clay. The budget behind it tells the bigger story: the kind of movie that ruled the 2010s can barely cover its own bills now, and a Batman villain horror flick made on Blumhouse money might out-earn the next $225 million superhero movie.