Clayface Debuts at No. 1 With a $24 Million Opening and an A- CinemaScore to Match Superman

Clayface opened nationwide on October 23, and it wasted no time taking the top spot at the box office. Friday’s tally landed at $10.4 million from 3,458 theaters, including $3.5 million from Thursday preview screenings, coming in well above the $9.5 million estimate that had circulated the night before. With that stronger-than-expected start, Deadline and Variety now have the DC horror movie projected for a $24 million to $25 million opening weekend, enough to put Clayface at No. 1 in its first few days in theaters.

A Modest Budget and DC’s Best Reviews in Years

Clayface arrives with a reported production budget between $40 million and $44 million, noticeably leaner than most of DC’s recent slate, and the reviews have more than kept pace. Director James Watkins, who recently told Gamersuniverse he had total creative freedom to build the DCU’s first look at Gotham City, delivered a movie that earned an A- CinemaScore from opening night audiences, the same grade Superman received earlier this year. It currently sits at 75 percent with critics on Rotten Tomatoes, Certified Fresh, with an audience score that debuted near 95 percent and has settled around 93 percent. James Gunn celebrated the grade on social media, writing he was “Really proud of this,” and noting how few horror movies have ever scored that high with CinemaScore.

No IMAX Screens, a Young Crowd, and a Full Cast

Clayface is pulling in its audience without a single IMAX screen, since Street Fighter has held onto those premium screens since its own debut. The crowd skews young, with 73 percent of opening weekend ticket buyers between 18 and 34, according to exit polling. Tom Rhys Harries stars as Matt Hagen, the actor-turned-supervillain whose disfigurement sets the transformation in motion, alongside Naomi Ackie as Dr. Caitlin Bates, with David Dencik, Max Minghella, and Eddie Marsan rounding out the cast.

Matt Hagen’s transformation into Clayface drives the DCU’s first horror entry from director James Watkins.

A Crowded Horror Weekend at the Box Office

Clayface’s closest competition is coming from an unlikely place: A24’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything. The Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim film added $6.14 million on Friday after expanding into roughly 2,655 theaters, pushing its domestic total past $30 million with another $19 million to $20 million projected for its second weekend. Laika’s stop-motion adventure Wildwood opened third with about $4.28 million from 2,942 theaters, chasing an $11.2 million weekend against its reported $100 million budget, while the romantic comedy Wicker debuted fourth with roughly $2.36 million. Street Fighter, last weekend’s No. 1, fell to fifth place with $2.34 million on Friday and is projected to cross $46.7 million domestically by the end of the weekend. Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams’ Klara and the Sun, the awards-season drama that opened to just $85,000 in Friday previews after Sony slashed its theater count, got buried even further in the crowded field.

The win is also an early bright spot for Skydance, the studio formed when its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery officially closed earlier this month. Clayface’s opening lands below Supergirl’s $37.1 million debut, though Supergirl went on to finish as the lowest-grossing DC movie ever despite the bigger start, a gap that Clayface’s reviews so far suggest it won’t repeat. A full three-day total wasn’t confirmed as of this writing, with official weekend estimates expected Monday.

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Picture Source: Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros.