Dakota Johnson has continued to be candid about her thoughts on the 2024 film she headlined, Madame Web, and the people who made the creative decisions behind it.
Even before Sony’s Spider-Man spin-off Madame Web was released in February 2024, its star Dakota Johnson talked candidly about her experiences of working on an expensive superhero film. Trying to act in front of a blue screen was, she said, “psychotic”. Days before the film debuted, she talked about the “drastic” changes made to the script after she’d signed on to play the clairvoyant protagonist, Cassie Web.
Over a year later, Johnson still has some strong opinions about the much-maligned film, which ended up being both a critical and financial disappointment for Sony. Talking to The LA Times about her new film The Materialists, directed by Celine Song, Johnson was asked about Madame Web, and whether it had made her think twice about appearing in such a mainstream film again.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Johnson said, before levelling her sights on an unnamed set of people who did make the storytelling decisions behind the scenes.
“There’s this thing that happens now where a lot of creative decisions are made by committee,” she said. “Or made by people who don’t have a creative bone in their body. And it’s really hard to make art that way. Or to make something entertaining that way.”
Read more: Madame Web | A look at what went so incredibly, fascinatingly wrong
Johnson again alluded to changes made to the script after she’d joined the production – changes that even appeared to continue into post-production, with the finished film containing an unusually noticeable amount of looped dialogue. There are certain scenes where characters’ lip movements don’t remotely match the words coming out of their mouths.
“I think unfortunately with Madame Web, it started out as something and turned into something else,” Johnson continued. “And I was just sort of along for the ride at that point. But that happens. Bigger-budget movies fail all the time.”
Madame Web, directed by SJ Clarkson, was by no means the only Spider-Man adjacent Sony film to stumble into cinemas. Morbius fared poorly in 2022 (despite being released twice), while Kraven The Hunter, which capped off 2024, also appeared to put paid to Sony’s hopes of building a cinematic universe of comic book anti-heroes.
Among the stars of those films, few have been as outspoken as Dakota Johnson, however. By contrast, Emma Roberts, who showed up in Madame Web as one Mary Parker – is the pinnacle of diplomacy. “I personally really loved Madame Web,” Roberts said last year. “I really enjoyed the movie. I thought that everyone in it was great.”
