Sony Pictures' Madame Web managed to assemble an impressive cast of already established stars and young up-and-coming actresses to play the lead roles... which may have been somewhat baffling to anyone who watched the movie.
We have heard that the movie turned out to be very different to the one the cast signed on to appear in, with a reworked (and inferior) script and a rushed production resulting in the disjointed mess that went on to bomb at the box office and earn an abysmal 11% on Rotten Tomatoes.
It's entirely possible that the cast simply didn't realize what they were getting themselves into (nobody sets out to make a bad movie... which can be hard to believe sometimes), but a new report claims that Sydney Sweeney may have had her own reasons for agreeing to make the film.
According to THR, Sweeney agreed to appear in Madame Web to convince the studio to give romantic comedy Anyone But You the greenlight. “She wanted them to know she was a team player,” says the trade.
Anyone But You ended up taking in over $200 million at the box office, and Sweeney is now one of the most in-demand - and highly paid - actresses in Hollywood.
Of course, this doesn't mean that Sweeney knew Madame Web was destined to fail, but either way, making the movie seems to have been worth the gamble!
"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.