Clayface director reveals why he wants "the world [of Gotham] to be corrupt"

The next DCU project, Clayface, is set to release in theaters in two weeks, as Lanterns wrapped up its eight-episode run this week. DC Studios is slowly ramping up the marketing campaign for the Batman spin-off movie after Lanterns, as we speculated. James Watkins sat down for an interview to promote the DCU movie, releasing this month.

In this interview, Watkins discussed what influenced the look of Clayface, his experience in making the movie, what to expect from the DCU Gotham, and most importantly, this continuity's Batman. While talking about this new version of Gotham, the filmmaker said:

"We want the world [of Gotham] to be corrupt. We want it to be a city where litter doesn't get picked up, where there's a sense of decay, where there's dirt, where the canyons of these places are overbearing."

1980s and 1990s New York influenced the Clayface team in designing Gotham:

Still from Clayface | Image Via: YouTube/DC

The filmmaker started the SFX interview by revealing what influenced the look of the Gotham City we are going to see in two weeks. He revealed to the SFX reporter that the production team looked at "1980s and 1990s street photography". James Watkins further went on to cite New York as an influence in designing Gotham:

"There was a documentary called Everybody Street, and I looked at a lot of the work of the photographers in it. It captures the bawdy glamor of New York, slightly edgy, slightly eccentric, slightly menacing, richly saturated colors."

Then the filmmaker went on to discuss his experience in making Clayface. When the reporter asked if there was oversight from DC Studios, James Watkins responded, saying that the studio executives, including James Gunn, backed his vision while making the movie. After assuring that the studio did not micromanage post-credits, Watkins went on to describe the DCU Gotham.

The filmmaker described Gotham as a corrupt and dirty city, where streets are not clean, both literally and figuratively. You can even draw parallels between Watkins' description of the DCU Gotham and the city we saw in the first Joker movie, which was released in 2019.

Then the director further went on to say that the DCU Batman will fit right into this dark and dingy version of Gotham. Watkins further went on to say that while we will not meet the DCU Batman in Clayface, the Caped Crusader's presence will be felt in spirit:

"You're in a city called Gotham. So I guess you feel the shadow of the Bat inherently. Because of the nature of where you are."

Despite Watkins' insistence, a recent rumor suggests that The Dark Knight will be in the upcoming DCU movie.

According to this rumor, the upcoming movie will introduce this continuity's Batman:

A recent rumor has suggested that the post-credit scene of the upcoming DCU movie will feature the debut of the DCU Batman. As of now, we have just caught a silhouette of the DC Universe Batman in a flashback in Creature Commandos Season 1 Episode 6. We don't know what his costume looks like, and neither do we know who is playing him.

James Gunn famously told Rolling Stone last June that he was having trouble finishing the script for the DCU Batman movie, The Brave and the Bold. Then, Gunn further revealed:

"I’m not writing Batman, but I am working with the writer of Batman and trying to get it right, because he’s incredibly important to DC, as is Wonder Woman. So outside of the stuff that I’m doing in the projects that are actively going, our two priorities are finishing our Wonder Woman and our Batman scripts."