Dakota Johnson suits up as clairvoyant Madame Web in the movie’s first trailer
Sony's Spider-Man universe expands with Madame Web, starring Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney
Film News Madame Web
Get ready to spend Valentine’s Day with another promising female superhero team-up. On the heels of the MCU’s The Marvels, Sony has released a trailer for their upcoming Madame Web, starring Dakota Johnson. Limes, Ellen DeGeneres, and now supervillains—she’s coming for them all.
The newly dropped footage has its moments, revealing the origin story of Cassandra Webb, a.k.a. Madame Web, before she is paralyzed and ends up in a wheelchair. A paramedic-turned-clairvoyant, she gains abilities that allow her to sense the Spider-World. She can also see the future, which helps her fight Ezekiel “Zeke” Sims (Tahar Rahim), who seems slightly different from his comic book counterpart. Cassandra battles him with the help of her new gal pals, played by Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, and Isabela Merced.
Their goal is to defeat Zeke, who can also see the future—gosh, this movie is going to have a lot of time travel, huh? He wants to stop them before they all grow up to be a version of Spider-Woman (minus Madame Web, obviously).
First of all, the trailer does have a line about “researching spiders,” so rest easy. It looks like a fascinating mix of The CW’s superhero fare (RIP), the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man films, and some amount of Morbius. The latter makes sense, as Madame Webb hails from Morbius’ Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, with Jessica Jones director S.J. Clarkson also joining behind the camera. While the clip appears to be a bunch of different things blended into one, hopefully, the movie finds its unique voice.
It is the fourth installment of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe after Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and, of course, Morbius. It will be followed up with Venom 3 and Kraven The Hunter. And lest we forget, all of this officially ties into the MCU now. Tom Hardy’s Venom literally transported to Tom Holland’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, among other connections.
Madame Web also stars Adam Scott, Emma Roberts, Zosia Mamet, and Mike Epps. It releases on February 16, 2024.
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“Madame Web, Madame Web, Does whatever a Madame can. Can she fly? No.”
“Spins a web? No. Any size? Nope. Catches villains, sure at times?”
but she can manage a brothel, so there’s that.
“Is she strong?Listen sirHer tastes are very singularLOOK OUT…”
Having finally watched “Across the Spider-Verse,” you kinda have to admire Sony’s persistence with a single idea:
“What if there were, like, a bunch of Spider-People?”
They should just go full John Wick and have every single person in New York be a spider-person.
“New York is almost like it’s own character in this film. And it’s a spider.”
Spider-Town, Spider-TownDoin’ whatever a Spider-Town doesIt’s up to youuuu, Spiiiider, Spiiider Tooooown!
This deserves more stars.
well unfortunately for my friends this comes out on my birthday and i haven’t outgrown irony yet.
just for that i’d like to invite you to my family’s annual Thanksgiving rewatch of Superman IV: Quest For Peace.
they’re saying adam scott is playing uncle ben and emma roberts is playing peter parker’s mom. say what you will about sony’s spider-verse but at least it’s got the people theorizing about weird random shit happening in coming book movies again instead of pretending to be box office specialists (mostly because if this makes more than $8 i’ll be surprised)
“Come on, Ben, we have to get going!”
“Now, now, Mary, I was just talking to my best friend, Logan.”
“Hey there, bu-ddy, got any beer?”
Now I’m imagining a world where Disney got to use Spider-Man on the condition that Sony could use Wolverine… so Wolverine pops up in random projects just for a minute. Sometimes he’s just a nondescript guy with pointy hair who calls people “bub.”
Sooo…she doesn’t run a brothel?
Step into her parlour.
Oh, Emma Roberts. Now I know I can for sure skip this.
Is she really in it? Because she sure wasn’t anywhere in that trailer (right??)
Whoa! Huge slam on Emma Roberts out of nowhere!
Na, not out of nowhere tbh
Maybe Paul Dano changed his name to Emma Roberts?
Yeah, I dano.
I admit to not being a paper comics person so never knowing more than what gets made into movies, but what does this lady and her clairvoyance (?) power have to do with spiders or the Spider-Man world?
She was a mentor for Spider-Man for a while in the 80s. She also had a big part in the Spider-Man animated series from the 90s. In the comics she’s blind and has a throne-like chair surrounded by a web of high-tech cables that acts as an antenna to vastly increase the range and potency of her psychic powers.
Why does Sony seem stuck in early 2000’s comic book movies.
I enjoy the Y2K vibe of Sony’s Marvel movies. It sets them apart from the MCU, and makes them more interesting.
Time travel?
You ever read some of those Sony emails? They’re just generally clueless and boomer-y over there
I wish is was possible to both un-read, un-send, and un-write an email. In this moment I wish that more intensely than I have wished anything.
Just absolute weapons-grade cringe.
You’re an old man who talks like a 13 year old and has the attention span of an 8 year old. And you’re a faggot. AND you’re poor. And you’ll never change a single one of those things.
I’m seeing a lot more women and minorities in this than I did in most superhero movies from the 2000s.
This is just deeply embarrassing.
Well that certainly looks like a film.
Ellen DeGeneres? Well, if she was Madame Web that would have had my money.
It’s fascinating how hard the writer of this article works to not say how terrible this trailer is/how bad it makes the film look.
Not even an acknowledgement of how having the same writers as Morbius is a bad sign.
Seriously. I read that line and was just like “wait, what? they re-hired those writers?”
“They can’t really be that bad, can they? Let’s give them another film and see if they do it again.”
Actually, according to Deadline and IMDb, the Morbius writers are *not* attached to the movie anymore.
Why do people not get that this film is a sequel to Morbius?
That was real foresight by her parents to name her “Cassandra”.
They wanted to go with something else, but they were powerless to pick a different name.So many layers!
Help me out, nerds. Is Ezekiel “Zeke” Sims an evil Spider-Man? Because that’s what this looks like to my haven’t-read-a-comic-in-quite-some-time eyeballs, and I’ll be honest, that looks interesting.
He isn’t evil in the comics, but he does have spider powers. I’m not sure what Sony thinks they’re doing here
I think he’s a transdimensional vampire that eats Spider-people.
Isn’t that Morlun?
You’re right! But the trailer seems to be giving those abilities to an Ezekiel, so he’s a warped version of the one that first appeared in the original 616verse. (COMICS, EVERYBODY.)
Yes.
Ezekial Sims is an old guy who got spider powers via a spider totem. I dunno, I thought that story was dumb, I don’t know much about it.
His costume and burning-hand powers look more like rogue Spider-Man clone Kaine, though.
In the comics, yes (along with the rest of Morlun’s family).Ezekiel is – again, in the comics – the character who JMS created to introduce Spider-Man to the whole spider-totem vs. people-who-eat-spider-totems things. He’s not a villainous character.I have zero faith in Sony’s “Garfield minus Garfield” take on Spider-Verse, so I’m not going to question whether movie-Ezekiel is the big bad or whether it’s Morlun et al. who’s actually the killer. While I’d also like to say I have zero interest in seeing this film, the idea of Sydney Sweeney filling out the Arachne (90’s Spider-Woman) costume is still out there.
Yes, it all makes sense. Because the main thing we know about spiders is how much they obsess over and/or hunger for totems.
I got them confused.
Fascinating.
No wait, Ezekiel is an old rich guy who got spider powers from a spider totem ritual. Morlun, not to be confused with Mobius, is the vampire-ish guy that wants to eat them. So making Ezekiel to villain instead of Morlun is confusing.
The really quick google search I did explained a lot to me.
So fuck off and google him yourself, you lazy twat.
Also, just to note, this is still a Spider-Man universe without a Spider-Man, so that makes it a…Man universe.
we’ve got a few members of the parker family in this one, and it appears to be set in the past (there are no cellphones, an old computer, and all the cars are 2000s at most)…so my assumption is this works as an origin story for holland’s baby spidey, which is so fucking funny.
I thought that was the mos “CW superhero” thing about it: A show set in a world of A-list superheroes, but featuring C-list superheroes.
“Also, just to note, this is still a Spider-Man universe without a Spider-Man”
Still? I’m not sure it ever was.
Do you think that Venom doesn’t exist in this movie’s world just because he’s not in the movie?
Is there any reason to believe this doesn’t take place in the same universe the Holland Spider-Man movies take place?
It’s a man’s man’s man’s man’s man’s universeBut it wouldn’t be nothing without a spider-woman
or a spider-girl
Spider Girl, You’ll Be A Spider Woman Soon.
Spider-Man, I Feel Like A Spider-Woman
Bess, You Is My Spider-Woman Now
Also, just to note, this is still a Spider-Man universe without a Spider-Man, so that makes it a…Man universe.
It’s a man’s man’s man’s world universe
Dakota Johnson,Emma Roberts, and Zosia Mamet all in one film. I guess we are over being mad about nepo babies now?
Lol no, people are still mad. Nobody can do anything about it though. We’re lowly nobodies.
uh this is madame web these aren’t exactly coveted roles.
“I guess we are over being mad about nepo babies now?”
Maybe all the losers whining about nepo babies took a walk into the real world and saw all the “& Sons” businesses, or all the butcher shops and family restaurants that have been passed down from family member to family member for generations and realized that nepotism isn’t a bad thing?
Or maybe they’ve had children and realized that only an absolute monster wouldn’t use their connections to help their child follow his or her dream career?
“Being mad about nepo babies” was a fabricated controversy that was more like “We’re mad that a few people on twitter mocked nepo babies once and now we won’t ever shut up about it”
I wasn’t too mad about it in general & especially not in this case since Dakota Johnson is actually talented and cool
I made it through a minute of that trailer before I lost interest.
good lord thirty seconds in and we’re already time-slipping again.Can Marvel not tell any other story?
This isn’t Marvel, it’s Sony aping whatever bad idea maybe sort of used to work for Marvel.
Again, it irks me when people don’t understand what’s MCU and what’s not MCU. You are forgiven since the elevator pitch for this universe is “let’s try to confuse people into thinking they’re seeing an MCU film”.
fair enough, so maybe it’s better to echo @stridewideman : can Sony not come up with anything better than ripping off the MCU?
Ezekiel stole Miles Morales’s whole look!
And Miles stole his whole look from Steve Allen!
Is that guy playing a PS Vita on the train? Talk about product placement for Sony (for a long dead console)!
And lest we forgetBelieve me, we’re trying.
I am just shocked at much better this looks than how low my expectations for this were, based on all of the Sony films to date. Like, I might get super high and watch this sometime very late at night once it fails at the box office, that’s how much this exceeded my expectations. I otherwise have noped out of all the rest of the Sony Universe based solely on the trailers. Maybe they ought to just go ahead and give the keys of their non-Spider-man SpiderVerse to Phillips and Lord? They seem to know something.
“Their goal is to defeat Zeke.” Superhero movie, or Andy Griffith Show episode?
“This summer Don Knotts is . . . The Fife! Nip evil in the bud!”
This looks awful, but do think Ezekiel just starting off as spider-totem power vampire (instead of secretly being that/something like that) is kind of cool – because why would any sequel of this occur, so it’ll be the only appearance we get, etc
Between Sweeney, Roberts and Johnson, you have a total of types of acting, all one note.
This trailer was so bad, not even bad enough that I laughed at it. Man this is gonna suck but we all knew it would.
This looks atrocious. Dakota Johnson seems like she’s on valium.
This looks good but seems like a devious way to get kids to want to see a new Spider-Man movie without Spider-Man actually in it.
I approve.
And lest we forget, all of this officially ties into the MCU now. Tom Hardy’s Venom literally transported to Tom Holland’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, among other connections.Well, only in the way that multiple universes exist. Tom Hardy was teleported back to his own universe by the end of that movie. I highly doubt Tom Holland’s Spidey will ever appear in this universe. Andrew Garfield’s Spidey tho…
“Now, when I tell this group of strangers about how this killer who’s after them is connected to my dead mother, it’s vital I mention she was studying spiders. I cannot leave that out.”
A paramedic who sees the immediate future? Nic Cage in “Bringing Out The Dead” and Nic Cage in “Next” would like a word.
It’s Madame Webbin’ time.
I know a lot of people love this side of the Spider-Canon but I earnestly think it is just the dumbest shit. Just does not feel “Spider-Man” to me at all.
Holy cow this looks like dreck. Why does anyone keep casting Dakota Johnson in anything? She’s like a charisma vacuum. Every line reading from her sounds like she couldn’t care less about what she’s saying, and she doesn’t register different facial features or emotions. I’m not an actor, but aren’t those important to do?Every non-Tom Holland spider man property can go fuck themselves. Venom and Kraven can piss right off. Just skip fast forward to when Sony capitulates to Disney and finally lets them fully use the characters they’ve been hoarding instead of all of these hints and teasers.
“The latter makes sense, as Madame Webb hails from Morbius’ Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless”
Except that it’s not. It’s written by CJ Clarkson and Claire Parker.
I’m guessing Adam Scott was a fan of this IP prior cuz I just cannot understand why he would do this film.