DC Studios boss James Gunn clapped back at a social media critic who asked who wanted a Clayface film, defending passion projects over endless remakes of the same popular characters.
Breitbart News reported that Gunn, the Superman director running DC Studios, traded words on Threads with a user who questioned the studio’s focus on the upcoming Clayface movie.
The unnamed user wrote, “who the f**k asked for a Clayface movie.” Gunn answered by flipping the question onto a string of hit films no one supposedly “asked for” either.
Clayface is set for release on October 23, 2026. It will be the fourth entry in Gunn’s DC film universe, following the 2025 Superman release, the box-office struggles of Supergirl, and the streaming series Lanterns.
Gunn replied directly on Threads. He did not soft-pedal the point.
He wrote:
"Who tf asked for _Back to the Future? Casablanca? There’s Something About Mary? Pan’s Labyrinth? Fury Road? Weapons? The Matrix?_"
That list mixes beloved blockbusters with oddball hits. Gunn’s message was plain: audience demand polls are not how movies get made.
He went further on how Hollywood actually works.
"Although it may seem like it, Hollywood isn’t a place where the only way to make a movie is the public voting on what IP they want to see that they’ve seen countless times before."
IP means intellectual property, the familiar comic characters and franchises studios recycle for easy ticket sales. Gunn argued the business is not a public ballot on the same brands over and over.
Gunn named the creative team behind the Clayface story. He said the project began with inspiration, not a marketing spreadsheet.
"Sometimes someone, in this case initially Mike Flanagan and then James Watkins and Hossein Amini, were inspired by a relatively little known fictional character and crafted what I believe is a very special story around that character,"
Flanagan started it. Watkins and Amini followed. Gunn cast that as the right way to work.
He closed the argument with a clear preference:
"I’d take that inspiration a thousand times over some writer trying to make a buck by writing a listless screenplay about a majorly popular character he or she has no passion or feel for."
In short, Gunn would rather back a sharp take on a lesser-known DC villain than another hollow script about a household-name hero written just to cash in.
The exchange captures a real tension. Paying customers want movies they recognize. Studio bosses and writers want room to chase stories that excite them first.
Gunn runs the DC film slate. Superman landed in 2025. Supergirl followed and was described as a box-office bomb. Lanterns moved to streaming. Clayface is next in the line, locked for fall 2026 as the fourth film under his watch.
Clayface is a shape-shifting Batman villain, far less famous than Superman or Batman himself. That lower profile is exactly what the critic flagged, and exactly what Gunn defended as a creative strength.
Hollywood has spent years leaning on the same mega-franchises. When a studio head says the public does not get a vote on every project, ticket buyers hear a familiar message: sit down and take what you are given.
Gunn’s reply frames that as artistic courage. Critics of the slate see a studio still searching for hits after mixed results and choosing deep-cut characters while audiences ask for clearer crowd-pleasers.
Either way, the Clayface date is set. The argument on Threads will not change the release calendar. It only made the gap between fan demand and studio taste public.
When studio bosses tell paying audiences their preferences are beside the point, they should not act surprised when those same audiences start asking who asked for the next obscure reboot.
