Clayface director says he "didn't have to worry about any concerns for a greater universe"

Clayface arrives as the third movie in the DCU and is set in Gotham City, home to Batman. But, the film is a standalone with very few connections to the wider shared universe, instead placing its focus squarely on its tragic villain protagonist.

Matt Reeves, architect of his own Bat-verse, is a producer on the film, along with DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran. But, according to director James Watkins, there were no guardrails for fitting the film into the DCU.

"I spoke with Matt, and he was incredibly supportive, as well as James Gunn," Watkins tells us when we meet with him in London. "And I said, 'Look, this is where I want to go,' and they were like, 'Great, do it.' And there was no mandate to try and match or change or do anything. There was this notion that, 'This is what we're going to create for Clayface, and this feels right for this story.' I like the standalone nature of this story. I didn't have to worry about any concerns for a greater universe."

But that doesn't mean Clayface exists entirely apart – even if the connections are so small you might not even notice them.

"There was little things, like if you had an advertisement hoarding, there was stuff that James had, like various burgers or products from their world, and we could cherry-pick some of the products that we thought [worked]," explains Watkins. "In the newspaper, there's a burger on it at some point, so there's kind of little Easter eggs and things that we've cross-referenced from their fictional world. But there was no overarching, 'You must do this,' or 'You must do that.'"

The film being so standalone hasn't stopped star Tom Rhys Harries from assessing his chances against Batman, either.

Clayface is in theaters this October 23. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming DC movies and TV shows for everything else the DCU has in store.