Madame Web has finally hit theaters, and judging by the abysmal critical reaction and poor box office numbers, it appears that this is one superhero movie that a lot of people are skipping. While Sony Pictures was able to get audiences to turn out for a Spider-Man movie without Spider-Man in it worked with Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage due to the character’s popularity, other films like Morbius and now Madame Web have not been so lucky. Madame Web might even be performing worse than Morbius, a movie so bad that the internet tricked Sony Pictures into releasing the movie due to making the film into a meme and the studio mistaking that for actual audience demand, meaning Morbius is a rare movie that flopped, twice.
Madame Web is a movie loosely based (the word loosely is doing a lot of heavy lifting) on the character from Marvel Comics. Madame Web was an odd choice for a movie, given that the character has never had her own comic book series, is a supporting character in the Spider-Man comics, and is traditionally played as an elderly woman who is bound to a life support system. The hook for Madame Web. the movie, seemed to be reimaging the character as a younger version of Cassandra “Cassie” Webb (allowing her to be played by Dakota Johnson) but also introducing fan-favorite versions of a Spider-Woman character: a reimagined version of Julia Carpenter named Julia Cornwell (Sydney Sweeney), Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor), and Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced).
Here are the biggest spoilers and plot developments for Madame Web answered and what it means for the future of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.
Madame Web
1/5
- Release Date
- February 14, 2024
- Runtime
- 1hr 57min
What Universe Does Madame Web Take Place?
Madame Web‘s tagline was “Her web connects them all,” implying her connection to all the characters but also seemed like a meta-narrative into the wider Spider-Man franchise. Going into the movie, audiences might be curious if Madame Web takes place in the MCU, connected to the Spider-Verse animated films, or even the Sony Marvel movies like Venom, Morbius, and the upcoming Kraven the Hunter. Due to the period setting of 2003, could the movie be connected to either the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man universe or Andrew Garfield Spider-Man films? Which is it? It turns out maybe none of them.
Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, or SSU as they want to shorten it, is filled with characters from Spider-Man’s rogues gallery like Venom, Carnage, Morbius, and the upcoming Kraven the Hunter, introducing both the titular hero also, Chameleon and Rhino, but notably no hero or even Spider-Man. Madame Web seemed to be looking to fill the void by introducing not only Madame Web but three different Spider-themed heroes who could theoretically appear throughout the franchise to fight these villains. The Sinister Six that Sony appears to be building could face off against the Spider-Women, that is a strong pitch on paper.
Yet before the release, they seemed to imply that Madame Web took place in its own separate universe. The 2003 timeline also makes it confusing because that would imply that if they wanted these heroes to fight Venom, Morbius, or Kraven in the present day, they would have to age up the young Spider heroes by twenty years at the most.
Madame Web‘s decision to place the movie in 2003 seems like an attempt to sneak the movie into being connected to the MCU, as it appears they want it to link up with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in terms of the timeline of when Peter Parker could be born but that doesn’t add up as that would mean Peter Parker was 13 during the events of Captain America: Civil War instead of 15 like that film movie establishes. Rumors have suggested that the film was originally supposed to take place in the 1990s to connect it to The Amazing Spider-Man movies, but Sony pivoted. Director S.J. Clarkson has shot down that rumor, saying the movie was always set in 2003.
Madame Web does not, in fact, connect them all. Instead, it appears to disconnect them all.
How Much Screentime Do the Spider-Women Get?
The trailers for Madame Web have focused on the villain Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) attempting to hunt down and kill Julia, Maddie, and Anya. The reason is that he had a dream of them killing him in the future because they are destined to become Spider-themed heroes like their comic book counterparts. The film’s marketing has leaned heavily into this, featuring the three women in their superhero costumes. Yet all the shots of the girls in the trailer in their costumes are what exist in the movie.
There is a brief dream sequence in the first act that is about a minute and a half, and finally, a vision of the end that Cassie sees. That means for the film’s two-hour runtime, it can be said the super suits show up for, at best, three minutes. Anyone going into Madame Web hoping to see a lot of cool spider hero action or team-based set pieces based on the three girls combining their powers is going to be sorely disappointed and better off watching The Marvels, which delivers on the promise of teaming up the characters.
The movie acts as an “origin” story for the three girls, showing them before they get their powers. This means for almost all of the movie, they are just average teenage girls, with Cassie put in the position to protect them, putting this in the mode of a Terminator movie.
The movie also never answers how these girls get their powers…or even what exactly they are. Based on the brief shots of them, it appears only Julia has powers in the form of some light-based ability that looks like it is projecting a web. Mattie Franklin has spider legs attached to her suit, similar to the Iron Spider claws that Peter Parker had in Avengers: Infinity War and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Meanwhile, Anya appears to have a series of gadgets, making her more like Batman than Spider-Man. Anya is the only one who the movie sort of hints at why this would be her superhero theme because she is very interested in science, so she might be one to invest in technology.
Is Spider-Man In It?
Madame Web is a Spider-Man supporting character, and the movie introduces three different women who have taken on the name Spider-Woman in the comics. The villain, Ezikizel Sims, wears a sort of evil version of the Spider-Man costume. The movie constantly makes allusions to Spider-Man, yet Spider-Man does not appear…at least not how one would think.
Adam Scott plays Ben, Cassie’s co-worker and friend, a fellow EMT. This is, in fact, a younger version of Ben Parker, or as most people know him, Uncle Ben. Early on, he tells Cassie that he has started seeing someone, and when she asks him her name, he doesn’t say anything, but the implication is clearly May Reily, who will soon become Aunt May. While Ben’s brother Richard is away, he is helping take care of Richard’s wife and Ben’s sister-in-law, Mary Parker (Emma Roberts). Mary is pregnant and, in the end, gives birth to a baby boy. That is right, she gives birth to Peter Parker, the future Spider-Man.
For anyone who missed that it was supposed to be Uncle Ben, the movie makes a note of how Ben loves being an uncle because it’s “all of the fun and none of the responsibilities”, a play on his future iconic quote “with great power comes great responsibility”.
The movie also seems to make a major change to the Spider-Man mythos. In the beginning, Cassie’s mother, Constance Webb, and Ezekiel Sims are looking for a rare spider in the jungles of Peru with rare healing abilities. Sims shoots a pregnant Constance, leaving her and her unborn child to die while he takes the spider. An indigenous tribe attempts to save Constance using the bite of the spider, but she dies, giving birth to Cassie. The spider bite has given both Cassie and Ezkiel powers. Both of them gain the ability to see visions of the future, which the film seems to imply is an enhanced form of spider-sense, Spider-Man’s famous ability, which is a form of precognition.
Meanwhile, Ezekiel can climb on walls and has super strength, speed, and endurance. The only ability it does not give him is webbing, which the comics and both the Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland depictions of Spider-Man establish as being a tool that Spider-Man created as opposed to something organic.Madame Web seems to imply that whatever universe it takes place in, the spider that bit Peter Parker and gave him his superpowers was not, in fact, radioactive or genetically altered, but a magical creature found in nature.
Are There Any Mid-Credit Scenes?
Mid-credit scenes are now a staple of not only superhero movies but also most big-budget blockbuster franchises. It seems weird when they don’t have them. For anyone who went to see Madame Web, there is no need to stick around for the credits unless you want to show respect for the names of all the people who worked on the film. There is no mid-credit scene or post-credit scene setting up any future adventures for Madame Web, Julia Carpenter, Mattie Franklin, or Anya Corazon.
The movie mostly gives a final tease before the end credits of Cassie, seeing the future of what she and the girls will become, decked out in their superhero costumes.
On a side note, anyone hoping to hear the infamous “Ezekiel Sims. He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died” line from the trailer that was mocked and memed will be disappointed as it is not in the movie. While that line is cut from the movie, there are still plenty of odd lines and even weirder line deliveries in the film that are poorly dubbed in as additional dialogue recordings (ADR). Half of the movie appears to be ADR in an attempt to rework the film and clarify motivations.
What Happens Now?
Madame Web raises a lot of questions that audiences might have, but likely not the ones the studio wanted when they greenlit the movie. The biggest question is, why Madame Web? Why not make a movie about Spider-Woman? Or a team-up of the Spider-Women characters with Madame Web as a supporting character? Why make a Madame Web movie if they were going to so drastically change her appearance, background, and even powers to where she is Madame Web in name only?
The movie was once described as “Sony’s Doctor Strange,” and one watch of the movie clearly indicates what that means. Both Madame Web and Doctor Strange feature scenes where the characters undergo massive change by having themselves awaken to the truth by having a mentor figure punch out their astral form. Madame Web’s big climactic moment even includes her projecting herself to three different locations to save the three girls, seemingly trying to imply it is part of the web of time she can see.
This seems to imply that Madame Web was chosen as a way to tie into the Web of Life and Destiny introduced in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and also give them a character to traverse the multiverse to crossover with other franchise, including the MCU as part of their Multiverse Saga.
Yet given the terrible reviews, which now put Madame Web even worse than Morbius, and a box office gross that looks like it will mark a new low for the superhero genre and gross even less than 2015’s Fantastic Four, this might truly be a one-and-done. It is unlikely Madame Web, Julia Carpenter, Mattie Franklin, or Anya Corazon will appear again. That’s a shame because, to the film’s credit, it can be said the three actresses cast to play the Spider-Women heroes are good and have the potential to be more interesting in other projects.
2024 was supposed to be a big year for Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, as Madame Web is the first of three movies in the franchise set for release. Kraven the Hunter will follow on August 30, 2024, with Venom 3 currently slated for November 8, 2024. While those projects will come out, one has to wonder, following two major critical and financial bombs like Morbius and Madame Web, if Sony Pictures will halt any future developments and either scrap their plans, reboot, or keep chugging along.
It also might damage or hurt the Marvel Cinematic Universe brand. While fans might know Madame Web is not connected to the MCU, general audiences might just see the name Marvel and assume it is part of it. Following the box office flop of The Marvels and the disappointment of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, it certainly has been rough for Marvel. Top that off with their competitor DC having flops like The Flash, Shazam! Fury of the Gods and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, it certainly does not look good for the superhero movie genre.
The hope can be that similar to how the poor reaction to Fantastic Four in 2015 did not hurt the genre, which recovered in 2016 with Deadpool and Captain America: Civil War, the upcoming release of Deadpool & Wolverine will help not only Marvel’s brand but also the superhero genre as a whole. Deadpool & Wolverine is the only MCU film being released in 2024, and a lot is riding on that film. Hopefully, Sony’s other two releases, Kraven the Hunter and Venom 3, don’t do more damage.
Madame Web is currently playing in theaters.
Want to learn more about Madame Web? Check out this behind-the-scenes video about the making of the movie.
