Mike Flanagan is one of the most well-known masters of horror working in film and television today. Over the years, he has directed adaptations of Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game for the big screen. He also created successful horror shows for Netflix such as The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass. However, Flanagan once tried to join the DCEU by pitching a movie designed around the villainous Clayface.
On an episode of Script Apart, Flanagan explained his meeting with a DC producer years ago to discuss ideas for future films. One of Flanagan’s pitches involved Basil Karlo, better known as the shapeshifting creature named Clayface, who possessed a clay-like exterior. Clayface is best known for being an adversary to Batman. Naturally, Flanagan wanted to develop a movie featuring the character that included horror elements.
“I went into Warner Bros. to have the meeting about DC,” Flanagan said. “It was a general meeting with [producer] Jon Berg talking about whether there was anything in the DC Universe that I could be a fit for… I really want[ed] to do Clayface. I went in and said, ‘You know, if you want to do some horror-leaning DC stuff, boy do I have a great take on Clayface. I’d love to do that movie.'”
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“And then if not, I wanted to talk about Scarecrow and Justice League Dark and Constantine,” Flanagan continued. “And I kind of threw everything up there and then said, ‘As a child, I used to dress up as Superman, because that was my hero — Christopher Reeve’s Superman was my hero.’ And the meeting kind of went nowhere. [Berg] didn’t really grab onto any of that stuff.”
Although his Clayface adaptation never materialized, Flanagan will soon get a crack at The Dark Tower on Amazon Prime. The show is based on Stephen King’s novel series about a gunslinger and his quest to find the namesake tower. A film adaptation of the books memorably flopped in 2017, but Flanagan promises to take a different approach to the material.
Do you want to see Clayface in the DC Universe? Let us know in the comment section below!
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