It's Officially The End Of An Era For The DCU In 2026

Published Oct 22, 2026, 1:09 PM EDT

James Hunt is a writer, editor, and content strategist based in Newcastle, UK. A journalism graduate with an NCTJ qualification, he has well over a decade of experience in online entertainment media. He's had thousands of articles published, received millions of views, and led coverage on everything from the latest blockbuster movies to the Oscars to bingeworthy and prestige TV shows.

With a new release, it's the end of an era for the DC Universe in 2026. The past few years have been tumultuous for DC movies: the end of the old DCEU, which was started by Zack Snyder, came with a whimper. Meanwhile, Dwayne Johnson's promise of changing the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe technically came true, but not how he envisaged: Black Adam was out, as was Henry Cavill's Superman (after just finally returning), with James Gunn and Peter Safran were brought in to rebuild things.

That started in earnest in 2025, with the release of TV shows Creature Commandos and Peacemaker Season 2 and, more importantly, Superman. The Man of Steel's first solo outing since 2013 was a success, earning over $600 million worldwide and receiving mostly good reviews (with 83% on Rotten Tomatoes). However, that was DC leading with one of its heaviest hitters possible, and 2026's DC releases have been about expanding beyond that.

That much is evident even just from the characters who have starred in the DCU's projects this year. Supergirl was briefly introduced at the end of Superman, but her solo outing puts the focus on Kal-El's cousin for the first time in a movie since 1984; Lanterns shone the green spotlight on, well, the Green Lanterns for the first time since 2011; and now Clayface has made his big screen debut.

Clayface Ends The DCU's 2026 - Has It Been A Success?

Image via MovieStillsDB

Barring a surprise drop, Clayface is the last DC Universe release of 2026. The movie stars Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen, an actor whose face is disfigured by a gangster, and so undergoes a radical surgery that changes his body into clay.

In terms of critical response, it's been reasonably strong, with a score of 76% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing (with Screen Rant's Clayface review from Graeme Guttmann calling it a "delightfully disgusting romp."). With a budget believed to be in the $30-40 million range, it should have an easier time of it at the box office, too.

That will fully determine how successful 2026 has been for the DCU, but it's been at least a little mixed. Things didn't get off to a good start with Supergirl, which, despite a great lead performance from Milly Alcock, wasn't well-received: it made just $126 million at the box office, failing to even recoup its budget, and has a "rotten" score of just 52% on Rotten Tomatoes. It did, however, earn an audience score of 72%, and has been a top 10 hit on HBO Max since its release on streaming last month.

More unequivocally a success was Lanterns. The TV show performed well on both HBO and HBO Max, averaging over 19 million viewers on the latter, and received critical acclaim, with 91% on Rotten Tomatoes (it did, however, suffer a slight backlash from fans, with a 67% audience score).

Those metrics lay out why Clayface's box office could easily swing the year one way or another for the DCU in base level terms, but they don't tell the full picture. This is still a growing franchise, and what's encouraging is that it's taking risks and telling different types of stories.

Clayface isn't an A-list Batman villain, and yet he's headlining a movie already. It isn't just sticking to the formula that worked with Superman, but mixing up its genres and tones: a space opera, a True Detective-esque HBO series, and a total body horror. In a world where franchise films and TV shows are so often homogenized, that's to be applauded.

2027 Is Looking Bright For The DCU

In terms of movie output, 2027 is going to be a smaller year for DC Studios, with just one confirmed on the docket. That's no bad thing, however, because it's a biggie: Man of Tomorrow, James Gunn's follow-up to Superman.

The movie will bring back David Corenswet as the Big Blue Boy Scout, and it's going to see him forced into working with an unlikely ally in the form of arch-nemesis Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), who'll be donning his green power suit to help face the threat of Brainiac (Lars Eidinger).

A lot of the cast of Superman will be returning alongside them in Man of Tomorrow, including Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, but there'll also be some more notable DC characters joining the party: Aaron Pierre as John Stewart after Lanterns, Xolo Maridueña returning as Blue Beetle after the 2023 movie, and Adria Arjona in an unconfirmed role, reportedly Maxima but with many people suspecting she's actually Wonder Woman, which would make 2027 even bigger for the DCU.

On the TV front, it's expected 2027 will bring the release of The People v. Gorilla Grodd, the docu-style series from the creators of American Vandal that stars Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen and Jimmy Tatro as the eponymous ape. It's also quite likely we'll see Creature Commandos Season 2, which started production in 2025.

James Gunn Is Still Taking The Right Approach To DC Studios

Credit: Lucy North/PA Images/INSTARimages

The DCU has not exploded into life, nor has it suddenly fixed everything wrong with DC movies from the previous regime. There are, clearly, still mistakes and misfires, such as the disappointment of Supergirl, and there will be lessons to take from that. It's also never going to please everyone, as the response to Lanterns shows. But on the whole, after 2025 and 2026, I'd still say it's in a good place, and still going in the right direction.

Choose the movie with the higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

The approach so far has been a fairly restrained one, certainly relative to how studios tried to catch up with Marvel in the 2010s, rather than oversaturating the market, and that's good. It means more time to figure things out, and to ensure, hopefully, that the right projects are the ones that move forward. That's clear because it has also been quite restrained when compared to Gunn and Safran's initial DCU Phase 1 plan, which had things like The Authority, Waller, and Paradise Lost that are at least on the backburner.

Again, not everything is perfect, and even among the exciting projects, there's some cause for concern (such as there being so many characters in Man of Tomorrow). But it also would've been tempting, and no doubt commercially successful, to rush into redoing Batman, but I think the longer that waits, given The Batman: Part II is coming in 2028, the better. It's good to see different genres being explored, and movies being made on much lower budgets, giving hope that this time, the DC franchise will be built to last.

• 

  Tom Rhys Harries

  Matt Hagen / Clayface

• 

  Naomi Ackie

  Dr. Caitlin Bates

• 

  David Dencik

• 

  Max Minghella

Gotham actor Matt Hagen's rising star is destroyed when a local crime boss leaves him horribly disfigured. Desperate to regain his former life, Matt undergoes an experimental treatment that restores his appearance but transforms his body into malleable clay. Now able to reshape himself into other people, Hagen sets off on an increasingly violent campaign of revenge against the ones he holds responsible for his fate.