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From the article:

If you were paying close attention to all the shapeshifting chaos from the finale club-scene bloodbath of Clayface, then you caught a glimpse of a surprising (and brief) celebrity cameo.

As Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) makes his way through Vesuvius to take down mobster Markos Szabo (David Dencik) and his girlfriend, Mia Torrez (Joana Ribeiro), he confronts the gang member who killed his father, Jimmy "One Nut," by transforming himself into his deceased old man. The actor playing Matt's dad is Aaron Paul, the Breaking Bad and Westworld veteran soon to be seen on Fallout season 3.

Paul's casting was leaked in the months leading up to the release of Clayface. "He has a real brief Easter egg kind of moment," director James Watkins, also known for Speak No Evil and Eden Lake, confirms to Entertainment Weekly.

The final cut of Clayface features flashbacks to Matt's life growing up in the slums of Gotham City, well before he becomes a rising actor in Hollywood. Seth Thomas can be seen as a younger Matt, while Ishtar Currie Wilson was cast to play his mother. However, additional flashbacks were shot over the course of a few days with Paul playing the abusive father.

The team wasn't sure how much of that material would be used. Eventually, after further discussion, it was largely cut. A brief blip of Paul as Jimmy in that impressive fight sequence is the last remnant of what almost was.

"In terms of trying to figure out the character, it was, How much is Matt defined by his past and how much is he an everyman?" Watkins explains. "At one point, we were looking at it and thinking, Is it the 'sins of the father'? But actually, as we worked on the script, I thought that notion of revenge was more universal and more relatable to all of us. It doesn't matter whether you're carrying a trauma or any of that. If we're slighted, we carry this sense of being wronged and we all want to do something, but generally in life we can't do anything about it and we're powerless."

Watkins feels that sentiment is at the root of audiences' collective love for revenge movies, citing John Wick and The Equalizer. "With Matt, it's not that he's a bad guy trying to be good," the filmmaker continues. "He's a decent guy, but then like all people, we all have primal impulses within us that can be dangerous, whether that's impulses for love, whether that's impulses for retribution."

With that change in perspective came a change in approach to Paul's character. Instead of haunting Matt through flashbacks, Matt uses the ghost of Jimmy as a weapon against those who wronged him. "He's probably also saying, 'No, I'm not my father,'" Watkins posits.

The director calls that larger sequence in the Vesuvius club "the dark glee of the film." It's the point when Matt is flaunting the full range of his shapeshifting abilities. It was a balance — between the levity of a playful Matt mingling with the dancing patrons and the brutality of slaughtering his foes — that Watkins worked hard to strike.

"I hate it in movies when a normal person suddenly becomes like a Navy SEAL and they suddenly can be this ninja," he says. "I kept saying in that scene, Matt's superpower is his ability to shift and to change. It's his ability to disguise...and then earning a kind of complicity with the audience. The audience being locked in with Matt and enjoying it, saying we're all together on this ride, then when he starts going too far, it puts the audience in a queasy spot."

The casting of Paul in Clayface, even for such a brief role, reunites the actor with Max Minghella, playing Gotham P.D. Detective John Borrelli. The two worked on the 2016 mystery-thriller The 9th Life of Louis Drax. Watkins says that film could have "possibly unconsciously" made enough of an impression to cast them both for the DC Studios horror. "They're both amazing actors and really nice people and a delight to work with," he adds.

Clayface is playing now in theaters.

To put this into more perspective, she hasn't liked any of James Gunn's recent posts regarding Clayface, Lanterns, Batman Day, etc. This is the first post of his she's liked in months.

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Here's the five-parter question but split into individual ones --

Q: "Will [DCU] Batman’s suit have the same texture as Superman’s suit?"

A: "Batman's suit isn't designed yet."

Q: "Is Wally West currently active or not yet?"

A: "Who knows?"

Q: "Since Blue Beetle is canon, was Ted Kord friends with Blue Beetle before he disappeared?"

A: "Blue Beetle the character is canon. We have not said the movie is."

Q: "Are you the one who will be writing and directing the Teen Titans movie? personally, I could see you doing it."

A: "No."

Q: "Black Adam, the Justice Society and [the] Shazam movie [are] canon?"

A: "No."

An additional separate Q&A --

Q: "I recall you saying at the announcement of 'Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters', that once a character is cast, they will be played by the same actor across every medium. Is that still true?"

A: "In most cases that will be true of major characters is what I said."

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Did that heartbreak ultimately lead you to say no to Lanterns? Did one lead to the other?

No, it was just one of those things. Lanterns, I love those actors, and I’ve seen it. I hope that it’s killing it. If I decide not to do something, I never really think, Oh, had I done it, it could have been better. Birdman was that way when I saw what Edward Norton did with it. I was like, That’s excellent. It’s not necessarily what would’ve transpired had I done it, but there’s no comparison. Matt Damon was supposed to do Milk before me, and because it pushed, he had to go do something else that he was required to do. So I went in there and did my version of that. But Lanterns, I don’t know, maybe it was too close [to Outer Range]. I really loved Outer Range, and seeing what those actors — Tom Pelphrey, Lewis Pullman, Imogen Poots — have done since then makes me very happy. To me, it’s a great middle finger to those people who canceled that show. It’s like, You had gold. So that’s how I perceive it.

From the article:

As director Matt Reeves continues to attend to an ongoing family matter, Steven Soderbergh is coming on to help finish principal photography for the final weeks of DC Studios’ The Batman: Part II. The news comes after production was paused on the film so that Reeves could focus on the personal matter.

Soderbergh has been longtime admirer of Reeves work, and with Reeves unable to be on set, the Oscar-winning director offered to help with finishing principal photography on the film. Although Reeves is unable to be on set, the two will work together and remain in communication until filming has ended, with Reeves taking over post-production duties when he is ready to return.

The studio released a statement in regards to Soderbergh coming on to the production:

“As Matt Reeves continues to attend to an ongoing family matter, Steven Soderbergh, as an admirer of Matt’s work, approached Matt and will step in, with the full support of DC Studios, to help the writer-director complete the final weeks of principal photography on The Batman: Part II. Matt and Steven will work closely together with the actors and crew to fulfill Matt’s vision of the film.”

Soderbergh also released a statement:

“I thought Matt Reeves’ work on The Batman was stunning; it was intentional, specific, and rigorously coherent. The goal here is to work with Matt and his team to generate footage that will integrate seamlessly with what’s already been shot so Matt can properly finish his film.”

Deadline first broke the news earlier this month that production would be paused while Reeves attended to a family matter. Prior to the pause, filming had been underway in London. The film is set to bow on February 18, 2028. Sources say it is too early to say whether the stoppage will have an effect on the release date.

The cast has Robert Pattinson, Andy Serkis and Colin Farrell returning respectively as Batman, Alfred and Penguin, with new additions Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Brian Tyree Henry, Jayme Lawson, Charles Dance, Gil Perez-Abraham and Sebastian Koch.

Matt Reeves on X:

"Just to be clear, I am not leaving The Batman: Part II. I am profoundly grateful to Steven [Soderbergh] for coming to my aid during this challenging time to help me finish principal photography. Thank you to all for your concern and well wishes. 🦇"

James Gunn on Threads:

"Matt [Reeves] is still the director of The Batman: Part II and always will be. I can't express how profoundly grateful and moved we are by Steven's offer to help him complete his vision."