Warner Bros.’ villain origin story, Clayface, is off to a respectable start, as the film has topped the weekend box office with a US$44 million global opening, marking the second win for the newly combined Paramount-Warner Bros. merger (Skydance) following Street Fighter’s performance last week.
As reported by Deadline, Clayface garnered US$24 million domestically, making it number one on domestic charts as well, alongside a further US$19 million internationally from 76 territories. As DC Studios’ first foray into the world of body horror, the film effectively shines a spotlight on one of DC’s most iconic Batman villains, bringing him to life on the big screen for the first time.
Directed by James Watkins (Speak No Evil) from a screenplay by Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House) and Hossein Amini (47 Ronin), the film follows rising movie star Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries), whose life is turned upside down following a fateful encounter with a local mob boss, leaving him horribly disfigured and practically out of a job. In desperation, Hagen volunteers to take an experimental drug from “fringe” scientist Dr Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), and although it is initially able to completely restore his face, things soon take a turn for the worse when horrible side effects start to emerge, slowly transforming Hagen’s body into living clay.
Elsewhere in the box office, Laika’s stop-motion animated film Wildwood, the studio’s first film since 2019’s Missing Link, launched to a US$11.3 million domestic haul, placing it at number three in the domestic weekend box office chart. The film garnered a further US$3 million internationally from 11 territories, bringing its worldwide total to US$14.3 million.
Directed by Travis Knight (Bumblebee), the film is based on the 2011 fantasy novel by author Colin Meloy and illustrator Carson Ellis, and follows the adventures of two seventh-graders, Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) and and her classmate Curtis (Jacob Tremblay), as they travel into an enchanted forest in search of Prue’s infant brother, Mac, after he is abducted.
Rounding off the top five earners at the domestic box office was A24’s Elizabeth Holmes meta-documentary You Can See Everything at second place (US$19.5 million), Paramount’s Street Fighter at fourth place (US$8.6 million), and Black Bear Pictures’ romantic fantasy comedy-drama Wicker at fifth place (US$5.8 million).
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
Natalie
