Madame Web wasn’t exactly what Dakota Johnson signed up for
Dakota Johnson isn't surprised at the Madame Web backlash, hints at studio interference
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Madame Web hadn’t even really hit theaters yet before Dakota Johnson had already started distancing herself from the movie. Working on a blue screen “was absolutely psychotic. I was like, ‘I don’t know if this is going to be good at all!” She said in the lead-up to the movie. Now that the movie is out and people are enjoying a lot of laughs at its expense, Johnson is being a little more explicit about her feelings. “I probably will never do anything like it again because I don’t make sense in that world. And I know that now,” she says in a new interview with Bustle.
Most interestingly, she notes that “sometimes in this industry, you sign on to something, and it’s one thing and then as you’re making it, it becomes a completely different thing, and you’re like, Wait, what?” This follows previous comments she’d made to The Wrap that “there were drastic changes” made to the script, “And I can’t even tell you what they were.”
Many reviewers sensed that the final result of Madame Web had been tampered with by higher powers: “Tahar Rahimmay may well have had every single utterance dubbed with the worst ADR you’ve seen on a big-budget blockbuster,” The A.V. Club’s Manuel Betancourt observed. Johnson herself lends some credence to the theory of studio sabotage. In these big blockbusters, “decisions are being made by committees, and art does not do well when it’s made by committee. Films are made by a filmmaker and a team of artists around them. You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms,” she says. “My feeling has been for a long time that audiences are extremely smart, and executives have started to believe that they’re not. Audiences will always be able to sniff out bullshit. Even if films start to be made with AI, humans aren’t going to fucking want to see those.”
Johnson may never reveal exactly what the difference is between the Madame Web she signed up for and the one that made it to the screen, but she understands why the movie is being “ripped to shreds.” “Unfortunately,” she confesses, “I’m not surprised that this has gone down the way it has.”
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“Johnson may never reveal exactly what the difference is between the Madame Web she signed up for and the one that made it to the screen”They were bad in entirely different ways!
I haven’t seen it yet because it would be a waste of both time and money, but the reviews and opinions I’ve seen online suggest that there’s little in the movie that’s good. It seems like this was a misfire from the beginning. I wonder if she signed on before the final script was written.
The best review I saw said:
“Madame Web is a two hour trailer for the movie you actually wanted to see.”
Pretty much nailed it.
Quite a few movies are like this where it’s an origin story that doesn’t do too much and hints at things people want to see in a sequel. Just give us what we want to see in the first place!
NERDS LIKE LORE.
Could be worse.
Captain Marvel was the prequel to a movie that The Marvels was the sequel to. They outright skipped the movie they were building towards.
The middle part would have shown Captain Marvel being truly dangerous. Marvel didn’t want to show that, perhaps fearing it would be too cool, so they skipped over that part, but kept the part where the character herself is unpleasant.
I’d say it’s worse than a trailer. It’s a two-hour post credit scene that teases us for something supposedly much more exciting, involving side characters from the main story in something like two decades.It has Uncle Ben, Mary Parker pregnant with Pete, plus three teenagers who are bound to become superheroes in due time, but have nothing outstanding at this point, apart from the glimpses of their future selves in Spandex. Meanwhile, Cassie Web (spoiler alert) becomes blind and paraplegic, while developing her psychic powers, during the climax of the movie, which makes her a supporting character in the future adventures of these three girls.Her path as a lead character starts and ends with this particular movie. She’s now bound to become the Oracle of that particular universe, nothing more, some mentor that will provide the actual superheroes with intel about what can happen next.And they don’t even bring the cat back for the final scene, which is one of the worst crimes in it.
I got high and streamed the bootleg version and greatly enjoyed it. It’s so goddamn weird. I laughed a lot. There are clips of some of the weirder parts online that are at least worth checking out.
thankfully it is so bad, it’s good. Glad my cinema trip wasn’t a waste.
An obvious attempt at damage control in face of a huge critical/commercial bomb. I can’t blame Dakota Johnson for it though, and at least she seems self-aware enough to recognize that she doesn’t have or want to have the particular acting style needed to succeed as an artist in the franchise system. And it’s not like making Madame Web will completely hurt Dakota Johnson’s career. Madame Web will probably be in the Netflix Top 10 when it drops on the platform later this year. Her press tour earned her a bunch of new fans. She’ll probably get nominated (maybe even win) a Guest Actress Emmy for her hosting gig on SNL. And her partnership with Sony on Madame Web paid off as Sony Pictures Classics is releasing her next produced/starring film, Daddio, later this year. If that’s a failure then most actors would love to have that failure.
Dear AV Club,The sooner you stop covering this movie, the sooner we can all forget it exists and move on.Sincerely,
Everyone
Wait, so you’re telling me that the actor who was in a bad movie actually wanted to make a good movie?
I have a super good cut of Madame Web, but unfortunately, it’s with my girlfriend who lives in Canada.
Ask your uncle who works at Nintendo to go pick it up when he’s grabbing that new console for you
Not Very Good Actress Surprised People Mocking Her Not Very Good Movie
“Johnson may never reveal exactly what the difference is between the Madame Web she signed up for and the one that made it to the screen”
End of the day, actors should at the very least read the script before they sign on unless they only care about the $$$ before making b.s. statements like this.
Yeah scripts never change. Wtf are rewrites?
It sounds like the point is that they changed the script after she signed on… Did you read the article?
It is my assumption that she initially signed up for a large cash sum, and then later, a further percentage of the profits what are sometimes referred to as royalties, old chap.
Man, dudes in the comment talking about hypothetical other cuts/versions of the movie are really missing the point entirely. She’s right about everything other than maybe that there’s a shocking number of idiots with no sense of visual/film/narrative literacy who will gobble up broken AI content and see no difference.
Well, thank God we have you around, to inform us “dudes” how we “missed the point entirely.” I guess, if I had a quibble, you could have explained what you think Johnson is actually saying, since everybody but you has it so wrong, but I wouldn’t want to intrude on your genius.
Someone’s triggered.
I don’t like smug comments casually dismissing people, especially when those comments don’t make any substantive argument of their own. If you call someone an “idiot,” first of all, maybe don’t do that. Second of all, make an argument of why people are wrong, so we can actually evaluate if you’re correct.
I’ll ask you, since you seem to agree with whatever point Manny Calavera is making. How are the dudes missing the point entirely? What is Dakota Johnson right about?
Someone’s a parrot
Because I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, I encourage you to just read what she actually said, and I believe you can figure it out! You don’t need to be a genius at all.
So, to sum up, you’re full of shit.
Nah, just don’t want to engage with an asshole.Her comments are in the article. She says plenty about the studio system and how movies are made. She’s not pining for alternate Madame Web, that isn’t her point at all.
You can bet your ass there are people drooling over the prospect of AI movies.
Sure, just like there were people drooling over those stupid NFT cartoons a couple of years ago. Doesn’t mean they’ll ever appeal to normal people.
“Normal people” line up to see cookie-cutter crap at the movies every week.
I don’t think anyone is drooling over “AI movies.” Well, maybe Altman. But the studio execs and some shortsighted hack writers are excited about is the idea of AI doing the first draft or two. Then you have a human clean it up and maybe add some ideas of their own and pay the human writer far less than you would have to otherwise. Lots of movies have multiple writers and if they can replace some of them with AI, they get to keep more money. But I don’t think anyone is going to use a script credited to AI anytime soon. Except maybe as a gimmick.
Netflix summer movies have been AI scripted (or at least assisted) for a few years. And we can see how well those turned out.
Counterpoint: This is exactly what she signed up for.
did she think it was going to be an indie art flick about a superhero?
Aren’t they all indy flicks? I mean Disney is the definition of arthouse
Well, the title IS French.
I don’t really get it. All she (or her agent) would have to do was look at any of the Sony spiderman movies without spiderman to see that they aren’t some kind of fancy art thing. And even the Venom movies which were the best received weren’t very good.
The Venom movies are the best example of Venom fan acceptance vs general audience/critic acceptance.
When she got signed a few years ago, there was probably just Venom, as Morbius or Venom 2 were at best in development.
Although that still would have been sufficient to impart the necessary knowing.
Does anybody care as much about Madame Web as the AV Club seems to?
Eh. I’ve seen earlier interviews where she was singing its praises and getting annoyed at interviewers’ incredulous responses to said praises. If *that* was her *acting* like she really believed in the film, then it was arguably her greatest performance yet.
Is it just me, or would Madame Web and Morbius have been better using the Disney+ show format?
I think this is one of those situations where they’d be better with the ‘sitting on a shelf , unseen’ , Warner Tax write off format.
“My feeling has been for a long time that audiences are extremely smart,
and executives have started to believe that they’re not. Audiences will
always be able to sniff out bullshit.”Counterpoint: Anyone who voted for the orange baboon in 2016, 2020, and 2024. Plus, how Hollywood studios have been taken over by IP and superhero IP. If audiences were smart, there would be a greater demand for original, and mid-budget adult-oriented movies.
To be fair, the people who voted for Trump also claim to hate Hollywood and also want different movies. It’s just that they movies they want to see are either about Jesus, or about a muscular white guy who beats up foreigners.
“Jacked Jesus: Border Patrol”. Coming soon to a theatre near you.
In fairness, they’re also sometimes about Jesus being a muscular white guy who beats up foreigners.
How long until people realize that there aren’t enough “typical” Trumpies to possibly elect him, and it’s really the fault of elites who won’t admit it?
You do know how the electoral college works, right? Republicans never win the popular vote yet are still elected thanks to an antiquated system they’ve slowly manipulated in their favor.
“muscular white guy who beats up foreigners”To be fairer still, they’re not the only ones who like seeing muscular white guys beating up foreigners. You’ll find movies like Die Hard to be beloved across political aisles.
Plus, how Hollywood studios have been taken over by IP and superhero IP. If audiences were smart, there would be a greater demand for original, and mid-budget adult-oriented movies.Is it on the audience? Maybe. But studio execs are the idea gatekeepers and they are some of the least imaginative and most cowardly people on the planet. To them an IP = instant audience. People DO like going to the theaters to see original things (look at Everything Everywhere All at Once for example). But 1) the studios don’t make a ton of those movies out of cowardice. 2) They don’t put a marketing budget behind those movies and 3) Most people don’t see a ton of movies in the theater so they are going to go to things that are “theater worthy” to them which is usually something big and dumb and that they know. It’s a bit of a catch-22.A mid-budget adult-oriented movie is box office poison to studios. Not big enough to get people into theaters, no IP to “draw in fans”, and being “for adults” takes out a massive segment of the movie going audience. It’s too much work for the studios. They don’t want a new formula they want the one that works (and the share holders like, most importantly). It’s a shame though because I’d rather see 4-5 mid budget movies made than a Marvels or Madame Web (although seeing Web in theaters with an audience that was “in on it” was a lot of fun)
It’s not Marvel. It’s SONY. And they’re pretty infamous for fucking things up.
It’s not Marvel. It’s SONY. And they’re pretty infamous for fucking things up.
I’m sure that audience is there, it’s just a niche audience and will most likely stay that way outside of some completely unforeseeable (and unrepeatable) cross over successes. You want a “Big Fat Greek” you need to finance double digit low budget rom coms a year and hope you luck out occasionally.
Lot’s of voters for the orange baboon would have no idea what a Madame Web is. They’re too busy buying “pay-it-forward” tickets to Sound of Freedom.
“If audiences were smart, there would be a greater demand for original, and mid-budget adult-oriented movies.”
I’m not sure that intelligence necessarily correlates with your particular taste in art.
Okay but you have to remember that most Americans didn’t vote for him. The voting population is less than half of the actual population, and the population of people who vote for one candidate is smaller still.Also, how are you measuring “demand”? People don’t always have equal access to “original, and mid-budget adult oriented” movies if they don’t have an art-house theater around. Plus, studios could choose to throw more advertising budget behind those movies so that people are exposed, and they don’t.
I love it how a veteran actress, who did a far more exploitative franchise and is literally a third generation nepo baby, gets to play stupid and get away with it
The AVCLUB has ignored Madame Web for too many days now.Thank you for this.Now come on Sony! On to the irrepressible Turner D. Century!
I love the complete lack of explanation for why there’s a mannequin on the bike with him.I also love how baffled the guy in the window is. He clearly lives in a city where weird superhero/supervillain shit happens all the time, and he’s like BUH WUH GUH?? when he should be like “Jesus Christ, this shit again”
It all makes perfect sense when it’s revealed that the mannequin’s head is FILLED WITH NAPALM!!!
it’s a future cult classic. it is a “so bad, it’s good” film.
Working on a blue screen “was absolutely psychotic”Yeah! Why couldn’t they have filmed it all on real sets with practical effects like all of those other superhero movies? Someone really should’ve told her she’d be delivering lines to a tennis ball against a backdrop.
Did she just refer to Madame Web as “art”?And she didn’t realize she’d be acting in front of a blue screen in a Marvel movie? Funny, Scarlett Johannsen got thru several Marvel movies without bitching about them while on the press tour. I seem to recall Dakota bitching about the 50 Shades movies, too. You took it for the paycheck and then decided to trash it when it sucked. You read the script before signing the contract, right?
“My feeling has been for a long time that audiences are extremely smart, and executives have started to believe that they’re not. Audiences will always be able to sniff out bullshit. Even if films start to be made with AI, humans aren’t going to fucking want to see those.” Dang, my respect for her just went up at least two notches.
It never ceases to amaze me that people who make movies for millions of dollars a pop, and have teams of people advising them somehow know less about the business intricacies than the fans of the movies. Dakota Johnson spoke to Elizabeth Olsen to see if acting in front of a Green Screen would be handled well prior to taking this role, Matt Smith speaks about his conversations with Karen Gillan about the management of Comic Book Movies and how her understanding of how well the MCU was handled led to him taking his role in Morbius and Sydney Sweeney tweeting out she is happy to join the MCU when she announced her part in this. If I, random fan know the difference how do actors and people who professionally work in the movie industry not?
She got paid for a job she is objectively terrible at. She should STFU and move on.
Yeah, the only people who have a right at saying something are anonymous commenters on the Internet.
Nah she doesn’t have to. You could stop reading about her though.