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You'll read a lot of reminders in the coming months that, before he was in charge of the cinematic DCU, James Gunn was across the street at Marvel Studios, crafting the Guardians of the Galaxy films. But I'm here to remind you, reader, than long before that, James Gunn was making horror movies. That past has come back to haunt him (heh) in a number of ways since the director started his comic book projects, such as in the 2019 Superman satire Birghtburn. But even more relevant to our current interests, with Gunn doing an actual Superman movie this summer, is when his horror instincts pointed him toward a project that would eventually become part of the DCU patchwork.

That movie is 2026's Clayface, with a script written by horror titan Mike Flanagan. And acording to Gunn, it's the kind of film that he looked for during his days in the spooky genre.

Gunn spoke about his love for Flanagan's screenplay during a recent conversation on the DC Studios Showcase Official Podcast, saying that, as he and DCU co-captain Peter Safran were founding their new cinematic universe, a Clayface movie was "not on our on our checklist."

"But Mike came in," explains Gunn with a pitch for Clayface that was like, 'Whoa, that is so cool.' And then he wrote the screenplay and fulfilled doubly on that promise."

"The thing about Clayface that's so cool," Gunn continues, "is Peter and I, back when we were like producing horror movies - The Belko Experiment, all these things - if we had gotten the script as a horror movie, not being a part of the DCU at all, it's this amazing body horror film that we would jump at the chance of making. It's just a great horror movie that is a great, smart, fun, fun horror movie in a genre that I happen to love, which is body horror."

And to all the doubters out there, we'd remind you that Gunn doesn't just love body horror, it's in his DNA as a filmaker.

"The first movie I ever directed was Slither," concludes Gunn, "Total body horror. And I think what Mike's done [with Clayface] has outdone all those things."

Clayface melts into theaters September 11, 2026.

In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." Join Popverse's weekly explorations of the best opening moments of horror cinema in The Coldest Open, and then check out:

• The best horror movies of all time, according to horror aficionado Greg Silber
• The most underrated horror movies from the past couple years
• All the new and upcoming horror movies for 2025 and beyond

And much gore. Er, more. Much more.