Clayface is the premier shapeshifter in the DC Universe, a mercurial figure who uses his ability to take any form to wreak havoc on the innocent and the guilty alike. So it’s fitting that the Batman villain’s solo movie would make trouble for the bosses at Skydance. In this case, though, it’s hard to say that Matt Hagen’s the bad guy.A new report from The Wrap indicates that since James Gunn and Peter Safran were fired from their positions as the heads of DC Studios and replaced by Jeremy Latcham, Clayface is now categorized as an “Elseworlds” film. As other reports about the firing have made clear, Skydance owner David Ellison fired Gunn and Safran in part because their nerd-first approach to superhero movies wasn’t reaching a wide enough audience and, more importantly, wasn’t bringing in enough money. But putting the financially-successful Clayface into the Elseworlds category seems contrary to that goal, precisely because most people have no idea what “Elseworlds” means.cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});The specific term Elseworlds comes from DC Comics, as the title of an imprint that publishes alternate-reality and out-of-continuity stories about established characters. The first Elseworld’s comic set the tone: 1989’s Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, by Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola. Set in 1889 Gotham City, the story pits a Victorian Batman against Jack the Ripper, taking the usual Dark Knight tropes and giving them a unique twist. Other stories under the imprint ranged from 2003’s Superman: Red Son, about a world in which Kal-El crashed in Soviet Russia instead of Kansas, to crossovers with pulp figures like Tarzan and the Martians from H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds.The concept of Elseworlds goes back even further than 1989, back when DC would label a certain tale an “Imaginary Story,” giving creators license to put heroes in strange situations. Marvel would have its alternate reality stories, long before they gave them a permanent home in the series What If…?, in which Uatu the Watcher would show the reader strange worlds where Spider-Man‘s Uncle Ben survived the fateful burglary attempt and Doctor Doom became a force for good.In short, Elseworlds give audiences and creators a break from the demands of a shared universe. And that’s a problem for a company that really wants to create a shared universe. Marvel has sequestered its What If…? stories to an easily-skippable animated series, and even then, used the Watcher (voiced by Jeffrey Wright) to painfully explain the episodes’ relationship to the rest of the world. When DC Studios had James Gunn, he used his large social media presence and nerdy enthusiasm to sell the idea to the public, making it clear that The Batman and Dynamic Duo were not part of the DCU. Case in point: Gunn went online to explain that Clayface would be in the mainline DCU, confirming that the Matt Hagen we meet in that movie was the same guy who fought Frankenstein and Rick Flag in Creature Commandos.But now Gunn is out as DC Studios co-head, and his persona and social media presence are gone with him. In his place is Latcham, who doesn’t have quite the same following or persona. Thus far, Latcham’s most visible an a frequently reposted interview from June of this year, in which he talked to the conservative Christian Broadcasting Network about making superhero movies that his grandmother would approve of.That’s hardly a good position for explaining the nitpicks of continuity, even if we weren’t talking about changing the status of a largely well-liked movie. But that’s the position that Skydance has put itself in, firing a guy who was really good at explaining the nerdy stuff to general audiences and replacing him with someone who hasn’t explained anything to anyone yet, all while creating further confusion about the shared universe in the public mind. The Skydance bosses probably wish they could dismiss such blunders as the work of a malevolent shapeshifter. But Clayface doesn’t exist in real life, so they only have themselves to blame.The post Clayface Is Already Creating Trouble for DC’s New Status Quo appeared first on Den of Geek.