Thanks to Sony Pictures' largely terrible track record with its Marvel movies, most fans didn't have high expectations for Madame Web. So, when the movie arrived with 12% on Rotten Tomatoes and made only $100.3 million at the worldwide box office, it wasn't overly surprising.
Despite boasting a decent cast and a director with superhero experience in SJ Clarkson (Jessica Jones, The Defenders), very little about Madame Web worked. Eventually, it became a subject of ridicule and is now destined to be remembered as one of the worst superhero movies ever made.
Dakota Johnson led the movie as Cassandra Webb, and faced the wrath of critics and fans alike for what proved to be a...peculiar...performance. Throw in a pretty unhinged press tour, and the actor is lucky her career wasn't completely derailed.
Talking to The Los Angeles Times about Materialists, Johnson was asked about Madame Web and bluntly responded with a laugh, "It wasn’t my fault."
She added, "There’s this thing that happens now where a lot of creative decisions are made by committee. Or made by people who don’t have a creative bone in their body. And it’s really hard to make art that way. Or to make something entertaining that way. And I think unfortunately with 'Madame Web,' it started out as something and turned into something else."
"And I was just sort of along for the ride at that point," Johnson continued. "But that happens. Bigger-budget movies fail all the time. I don’t have a Band-Aid over it. There’s no part of me that’s like, ‘Oh, I’ll never do that again’ to anything. I’ve done even tiny movies that didn’t do well. Who cares?"
What did Madame Web used to look like? Well, we know early plans called for it to potentially be tied to the MCU, with the young Peter Parker a more integral part of the story (instead, Mary Parker's pregnancy proved largely irrelevant and her baby wasn't even named).
Based on early rumours and fan speculation, it's possible Madame Web once had Cassandra and the Spider-Women protecting Peter before he was sent to another reality: Earth-616. With that, the door would have been opened to future crossovers, though it sounds as dumb and convoluted as The Vulture somehow showing up on Morbius' world. So, no one will likely shed any tears about it not happening.
Do you think there could have been a better version of Madame Web than the one we got in theaters last year?
Meanwhile, in another universe...In a switch from the typical genre, Madame Web tells the standalone origin story of one of Marvel publishing's most enigmatic heroines.
The suspense-driven thriller stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, a paramedic in Manhattan who may have clairvoyant abilities. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she forges a relationship with three young women destined for powerful futures...if they can all survive a deadly present.
The movie stars Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, Isabela Merced, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, and Adam Scott.
Madame Web is now available on Digital, DVD, Blu-ray, 4K and on Netflix.