Dakota Johnson’s Madame Web Was a Flop — Hollywood Is to Blame

Is that this the tip of superhero mania?

Madame Web, the newest film in Sony’s Spider-Man cinematic universe is right here, and everybody has ideas on it — together with its star Dakota Johnson. In a new interview with Bustle, Johnson, who performs the titular position of Cassandra “Cassie” Webb, opened in regards to the movie, most particularly the way it has been…largely ridiculed. ICYMI, since its February 14 launch, the movie has change into fodder on TikTok, Saturday Night Live and basic social media discourse. The consensus? Madame Net sucks.

And Johnson is aware of precisely why it didn’t work. In truth, as she informed Bustle, she wasn’t stunned that the response to her new movie turned out the best way it did. “It’s so laborious to get motion pictures made,” Johnson informed the outlet, “and in these large motion pictures that get made — and it’s even beginning to occur with the little ones, which is what’s actually freaking me out — selections are being made by committees, and artwork doesn’t do properly when it’s made by committee.”

The star went on to notice that audiences can sniff out BS in relation to the films they watch, one thing studios and their execs don’t consider. “My feeling has been for a very long time that audiences are extraordinarily sensible, and executives have began to consider that they’re not.” Rattling.

Whereas Johnson might have been talking in reference to Madame Net, the actress has clearly outlined the overarching downside with Hollywood and the film trade as of late, with revenue overtaking the artwork and pleasure of filmmaking. So, if now we have anybody responsible for Madame Net being a little bit of a cringe-fest, it’s Hollywood itself.

For these not up on their superhero movies, Madame Net is the fourth movie in Sony’s Spider-Man universe, and follows Cassandra Webb, a Manhattan paramedic who develops psychic skills after an accident. The character is predicated off a Marvel comics character of the identical title. The forged additionally options Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced and Celeste O’Connor as three of the long run Spider-Ladies, who’re being hunted by the film’s villain. Whereas it sounds just like the film can be successful with Spider-Man followers, critiques have been less-than-complimentary, raking in a 12% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a weak field workplace opening.

The factor is: It is a very long time coming. It’s no shock that Sydney Sweeney’s superhero movie is faltering at the very same time her romantic comedy Anyone But You is flourishing and smashing box office records; as a result of these two genres of movie have been on the other finish of the recognition see-saw ceaselessly. After a robust run within the Nineties and early 2000s, romantic comedies began to trickle out round 2010.

There have been a couple of causes for this, together with a slew of romcoms that didn’t hit the place audiences wanted them to. Behind the scenes, there was additionally a push from Hollywood execs and film financiers to both again billion-dollar franchises like The Quick and the Livid or awards season contenders. As Scott Meslow, the creator of From Hollywood with Love: The Rise And Fall (And Rise Again) Of The Romantic Comedy, informed Refinery29 in October 2022, romantic comedies simply didn’t match that invoice.

“Romcoms have been uniquely devalued by an period just like the place we at the moment are, [where] all the pieces is a $300 million Spider-Man film or a $10 million indie that may win finest image,” Meslow stated on the time. In comparison with these movies or the few romcoms that did get garner acclaim, usually with a white male protagonist on the heart, “commercially, [romcoms] have been by no means going to make $1 billion worldwide, and critically, they have been by no means going to get the awards applause that studios are hungry for. So there was a way that they weren’t serving the aim that the studios wanted them to.”

And that formulation labored — for awhile no less than. However new components, like rising fatigue over stated franchises (sorry, however will we *actually* want 12 Quick & Livid movies?!) and a change of priorities through the pandemic, implies that not solely do viewers need authentic and new tales, however they need movies that assist them escape and — most significantly — make them really feel good. As author Benjamin Lee famous in a February 2024 (one-star) overview of Madame Net for The Guardian, the response to the film was “an inevitable collapse” of a “profitable but tiresome stronghold.”

Briefly, moviegoers are sick of seeing the identical drained formulation over and over (Madame Net *is* the fourth movie within the Sony’s Spider-man universe) and feeling exploited by execs who’re simply aiming for one objective — profitability. (Hey execs, we all know what you’re doing!!) It not solely leaves audiences drained and made to really feel undeserving of recent and thrilling content material, but additionally limits entry to new and various storytellers who typically don’t match throughout the blockbuster parameters. This distaste is exhibited by the downfall in reputation of this former blockbusters and the romcom renaissance on the big screen.

Earlier than the discharge of Johnson’s newest movie, different superhero movies like 2023’s The Flash, 2019’s Shazam, and 2023’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom have been already underperforming. If something, Madame Net’s downfall is the proper encapsulation of this, and probably heralds the tip of superhero mania as we’ve come to comprehend it over the previous decade. In fact, what makes this specific flop a lot extra upsetting is the truth that Madame Net wasn’t simply any previous superhero film, however one of many few to function a whole forged of feminine superheroes. (Is that this giving anybody else severe glass cliff vibes?).

However possibly that is one thing that wanted to occur to ensure that execs to appreciate change is important in Hollywood and the films which are produced — as a result of individuals are catching on. Viewers have all the time turned to movies as a method of escape, but additionally as a technique to see themselves, their pursuits and their needs mirrored again to them on-screen, and what’s been on our screens over the previous a number of years hasn’t essentially been becoming the invoice.