Sony Pictures' Madame Web was nominated for six Razzie Awards this year, and ended up walking away with three "wins" for Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Actress, with star Dakota Johnson singled out for her... uneven performance.
The Materialists star took this dubious honor in her stride, and has now revealed that something positive did come out of her Razzie win, as she ended up being contacted and congratulated by one of her screen idols.
"I got a voice note from Sandra Bullock, because I don’t know if you know, but I won the Razzie for Worst Actress," Johnson said on the latest episode of Amy Poehler’s “Good Hang” podcast. "Sandra Bullock sent me a voice note being like ‘I heard you are in the Razzie club and we should have brunch, we should have a monthly brunch.’ Because I guess she won that the year that she won the Oscar as well. It was in the same year, I think. I freaked out getting this message from her because she’s so iconic to me as like a movie star. I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ It was just crazy.”
Bullock did indeed win the Worst Actress Razzie for rom-com All About Steve, before going on to win the Best Actress Academy Award for a few days later for her performance in The Blind Side.
Johnson recently confirmed that the version of Madame Web she signed on for was vastly different to the movie that ended up being released, and elaborated on the critical and commercial fallout while chatting to Poehler.
“That is a wild thing to like a crazy journey to go on as an artist because you’re like, ‘Okay, I’m doing something like with my actual body and my actual mind and my heart, my emotions. I’m like using things. And it’s just being taken and f*cked with.’ But you can’t do anything about it. Like, what am I gonna do? F*cking cry about ‘Madame Web’? No.”
The box office underperformances of Madame Web and the more recent Kraven the Hunter essentially hammered the final nail in the coffin of Sony's SSU, although we have heard that the studio intends to cling on to the rights to these Spider-Man characters for a while longer and may even be planning a revamp of the franchise.
"Meanwhile, in another universe...' reads the official synopsis, "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."
Johnson stars as the clairvoyant Cassandra Webb, who uses her abilities to save a group of young woman, played by Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O’Connor, from a villainous Spider-Man lookalike known as Ezekiel Simms.
The girls Webb is doing her best to keep safe, Julia Carpenter, Mattie Franklin and Anya Corazón, are all destined to become heroes with Spider-like powers of their own, and Simms is targetting them because of what they do to him in the future.
S.J. Clarkson, who also helmed Marvel’s Jessica Jones and The Defenders, directs from a script by Matt Sazama, Kerem Sazama and Burk Sharpless. Adam Merims executive produced.