Madame Web is coming under fire for all manner of reasons, but even its biggest detractors seem to agree that they'd like to see more of Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), and Mattie Franklin (Celeste O'Connor).
Better known as Spider-Woman, Araña, and Spider-Girl on the page, we only get to see them suited up for a couple of minutes and the three teenagers never actually acquire superpowers before the credits roll.
There's a pretty strong hint it will eventually happen, but with the costumed heroes featured heavily in trailers, TV spots, and posters, a lot of people feel very misled.
Now, director SJ Clarkson has weighed in on only giving Cassandra "Cassie" Webb an origin story while talking to ComicBook.com.
"Well, I thought it would be a bit greedy to do four origin stories. That's not really fair, is it? I've got to share it. Come on. I mean, first and foremost, it's Madame Web, right? But I hope the exciting thing about it is, this is a tease. And I think the origin story of the girls, we're given, hopefully, a hint of the spirit of who they are. We've tried to stick to the spirit from the comic books, and draw from that and find out who they are and get a little bit of their sass and a little bit of their character coming through."
"But that's a lot of story to tell, I think, in one [movie]. And I think it wouldn't do any of them justice to try and sort of crowbar or cram it all into one movie. So I think it's Madame Web's, and here's kind of the development of something else underneath it. But yeah, I thought that was probably too greedy. They'd be like, 'Get out.' You've already done [Jessica Jones]. Now Madame Web, and now all of them? No, give someone else a chance."
Madame Web devotes a lot of screentime to Julia, Anya, and Mattie, and Ezekiel even has a spider in his care which is capable of imbuing people with superpowers. Despite that, the trio never comes close to fulfilling their destiny beyond moving in with Cassie.
Interestingly, a flash-forward to the future shows Cassie handling that spider, suggesting she'll use it to dole out powers to those around her. Does that include Peter Parker? With the chances of a sequel looking slim after terrible reviews and a dismal opening week, we don't anticipate ever finding out the answer!
It's hard to know where to start when it comes to how badly Sony dropped the ball with Madame Web, particularly when the movie had so much potential. Next up for the studio is Kraven the Hunter, a movie which has already drawn the wrath of fans for turning Rhino into some sort of mutant creature.
Madame Web is now playing in theaters.