Clayface is flopping overseas before reviews are even out. The US is its last chance
The DC horror experiment opened abroad two days before its American debut, and the early international numbers came in under everyone's worst-case scenario.
Clayface opened in South Korea on October 21, two days ahead of its October 23 US release, and the first-day figures making the rounds on r/boxoffice — pulled from KOBIS, Korea's official ticketing database — put it in sixth place with roughly 10,000 admissions. By that count it's the weakest opening day a DC or Marvel movie has ever had in the country.
Korea had warning signs on it: Supergirl fell to fourth place there within two days this summer. But the same subreddit's read of Portugal's presales points the same direction, and the domestic numbers aren't arguing back.
The tracking, itemized
- Presales: about 80 percent behind Supergirl at the same point in the sales cycle, per Box Office Theory — the lowest of any DCU release. Supergirl opened to $38 million in June, and DC spent the summer explaining that number.
- The Sony comparison: presales trail Zach Cregger's Resident Evil by about 66 percent.
- The projection: an opening below $20 million, down from the $23–33 million Boxoffice Pro forecast at the start of the month.
- The math: a $40 million budget plus an estimated $30 million in marketing puts break-even around $100 million worldwide.
A sub-$20 million start doesn't get there without exceptional holds, and horror movies aren't famous for those.
Clayface presales run 80 percent behind Supergirl — the film whose own opening DC spent the summer calling a disappointment.
One weekend, one variable
The review embargo is lifting right as the international numbers land, and the first Rotten Tomatoes review out of the gate called the film "DC's Morbius moment" — exactly the comparison the studio has been trying to outrun since the second trailer. The r/boxoffice regulars, who spent weeks split between "cheap horror prints money at Halloween" and the Sonyverse comps, have started conceding the argument:
"The DC fans really gaslighted themselves this time."
— r/boxoffice commenter
Others in the same threads are bracing for the critics to finish the job:
"This sub might implode when the review embargo lifts"
— r/boxoffice commenter
What's left is the American weekend, and it carries more than this movie. Clayface is the cheapest, strangest thing DC Studios has put in theaters, and it's the last DC release until Man of Tomorrow in July 2027. If a $40 million villain experiment can't find an audience even at Halloween, the slate math gets very simple: nothing but capes until further notice.
Previously we wrote: Street Fighter won its opening weekend, then lost Monday to Nathan Fielder's movie