As 'Clayface' Wins Box Office, James Gunn Chooses Story Over Continuity

Thanks to its small budget and dropping a horror movie directly in the middle of horror season, Clayface is already a tidy hit for the DCU, which desperately needed one after Supergirl crashed on the runway over the summer. (Unfairly, I might add because Milly Alcock is pretty great, and the film is better than the reviews it’s been getting.)

However, in a superhero genre that’s been dominated by Marvel, fans have come to expect some sort of connective tissue leading towards some grand event, which creates a whole lot of “homework.” (VisionQuest, anyone?) James Gunn isn’t playing that game.

While responding to a fan on Threads, Gunn entered into a debate on whether the DCU needs to build towards something or is fine telling “individual stories” like it’s been doing so far. Naturally, Gunn sided with a fan defending the latter.

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.

Is the proof in the pudding? Superman did well. It didn’t blow the roof off of the box office, but it did solid numbers in a time where “superhero fatigue” is very real. Peacemaker Season 2 came and went with little fanfare. Supergirl, as we all know, did not do great. Lanterns, on the other hand, was a ratings hit for HBO, and Clayface is number one at the box office, albeit with only a $24 million haul. The competition was not stiff, but the film didn’t need to make much to be a financial success. (Yes, I know, Creature Commandos was technically the first DCU project, but animation is a very niche audience and life is too short.)

These projects are finding an audience, but they haven’t reached a cultural saturation on par with Marvel. Then again, Marvel isn’t the Marvel it used to be, and it might never be again. Avengers: Doomsday feels more like a Hail Mary than a return to form, and once again, the homework involved is off the charts. As for the DCU, you truly can walk into these projects knowing nothing. My wife and daughter never saw Superman, but Supergirl worked perfectly without it. (And probably better because they did not like Superman.) Lanterns is also a clean slate that freaking sings from start to finish, and Clayface requires no knowledge of anything. Although, it is walking a very similar tight rope that Sony embarrassingly fell from with its Spider-Man villain movies that don’t have Spider-Man. Except, in this case, there’s no Batman. Will DCU fans put up with that for long? That’s where things could get dicey.

All of that said, it is commendable what Gunn is going for: Just tell a complete story with these incredible characters and let the chips fall where they may. It won’t lead to another cultural juggernaut like the glory days of the MCU, but is anyone really desperate to go back to those times?