Given Sony Pictures' largely dismal track record with its Marvel movies, most fans didn't have particularly high expectations for Madame Web. So, when the movie debuted with 12% on Rotten Tomatoes and earned only $100.3 million at the worldwide box office, no one was shocked.
Despite boasting an impressive cast and a director with superhero experience in SJ Clarkson (Jessica Jones, The Defenders), little to nothing about Madame Web worked. Now, it's destined to be remembered as one of the worst superhero movies ever made.
While lead star Dakota Johnson was wifely ridiculed for her performance as the title character, Isabala Merced and Sydney Sweeney managed to emerge largely unscathed.
Talking to Empire Online, Sweeney, who played Julia Cornwall/Spider-Woman, reflected on her experience of making a superhero movie.
"It’s always fun to be able to be a part of something that’s bigger than yourself," she started. "I hadn’t done a studio film yet, and I had started my production company [Fifty-Fifty Films]. I had some properties that I really wanted to be able to take out to studios, and I needed to be able to get my name to have more value, within a studio household."
"Doing a project like that really helps you on in the market. I also wanted to be able to do something that my cousins can watch. I have a bunch of little teenage cousins, and they don’t really understand what I do," Sweeney continued. "I thought it would be so cool to be able to do something that they’d actually think was fun and cool."
When the site pointed out to her that Madame Web was a critical and commercial flop, she responded, "I mean, I had a really fun time, so that is all that matters to me. I think that if you are enjoying what you do, it doesn’t really matter what the outcome is, on a box-office level. Of course, you want the film to be celebrated and loved and successful, because then everyone succeeds."
Sweeney has quickly moved on from Madame Web, both in terms of her acting projects and the movies she's producing. On the way for the Spider-Woman actress is an untitled Christy Martin biopic, The Housemaid, and video game adaptation, Split Fiction. She's also expected to return in HBO's Euphoria.
As for comic book roles, it's unclear whether Sweeney intends to join the MCU or DCU, but she has been rumoured for several Marvel Studios and Star Wars roles in recent months.