In the wake of the dreadful “Madame Web” flop, the central question everyone seems to be asking themselves when it comes to Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSMU) is, what the hell is going on over there at that studio? (several post-mortems from Puck and THR are withering in their assessment of the SSMU, and Sony is definitely taking it in the teeth today) While Sony’s superhero movies have flourished when they are Marvel co-productions, “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” grossing almost $2 billion during the 2021 pandemic, and the “Spider-Verse” are big critical and commercial hits under Christopher Lord and Phil Miller, everything else appears to be a wash of late. Sony’s “Madame Web” opened up to a dismal $25.8 million this weekend and was even beaten by “Bob Marley: One Love”— a rock biopic is never expected to trounce a superhero film at the box office.
READ MORE: ‘Madame Web’ Review: Dakota Johnson Can’t Save This Forgettable’ Spider’ Money Grab
Starring Dakota Johnson alongside Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, Isabela Merced, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, and Adam Scott, “Madame Web” was trounced by audiences and critics. The film currently has a 13% Rotten Tomatoes score, one of the lowest on record for any superhero movie, a rotten audience score, and the C+ CinemaScore grade was terrible (super low for a superhero title).
THR reports on something we basically all already assumed: Sony had hoped to make a franchise or trilogy out of “Madame Web” films, and that plan is all but dead now. The trade says “Madame Web” cost $100 million, $20 million more than was actually reported, and while that’s much lower than what Marvel and DC Films cost ($200 million and up), it’s still another black eye for Sony and worse, the seemingly ailing superhero genre.
Sure, “Venom” was a hit in 2018 was a hit, but was derided by critics, and “Venom 2,” revealed many box-office diminishing returns (see Puck’s blistering comment on Venom this week, “[Tom Hardy’s] star turn that seemed like an attempt to win an Oscar and a Razzie at the same time”]. What Sony seems to be remembered more for is glaring disasters like “Morbius” in 2022. Sony still has two more superhero films to release this year, “Kraven The Hunter,” and “Venom 3,” but no film pundit or voice in fandom seems to have any excitement for them or confidence in them (‘Kraven’s trailer was terrible, tbh, and looked akin to “Madame Web” or “Morbius”).
And some audiences (or reporters, even) can’t seem to discern between the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the SSMU; there’s a solid argument to be made that Sony’s failure, like DC’s failure in 2023, is just hurting the overall impression audience have of the seemingly ailing and waning superhero genre. DC essentially had three flops last year, and even their fourth film of the year, “Aquaman: And The Lost Kingdom”: it grossed $433 million—not impressive, but just ok, by today’s standards—the four films they released in 2023 could not even add up to $1 billion worldwide which is pretty bleak.
“The Marvels” was Marvel Studios’ first black eye (only $206.1 million worldwide), and “Madame Web,” another female-led superhero film bombing just three/four months later, is starting a potentially disturbing trend in the industry.
We’ve already heard that Sony’s “Silk: Spider Society” is being refocused with a more “male-skewing audience in mind,” and even more alarming was this quote in Puck news from an anonymous Disney executive.
“Everyone says, ‘It’s the movies, stupid,’ which is an easy thing for people to say. More appealing movies are a great way to jump the political issues. But more and more, our audience (or the segment of the audience that has been politicized) equates the perceived messaging in a film as a quality issue. They won’t say they find female empowerment distasteful in The Marvels or Star Wars [the latest trilogy starring Daisy Ridley], but they will say they don’t like those movies because they are ‘bad.’ So ‘make better movies’ becomes code for ‘make movies that conform to regressive gender stereotypes or put men front and center in the narrative.’ Which is what you’re seeing now and what Bob [Iger] ’s pivot is about right now.”
So, two potential narratives are potentially taking hold at the moment in media: fandom and audiences (and all of them rooted in fear). One that audience habits are changing and superhero films are in decline (see Variety today: “What the ‘Bob Marley’ Movie’s Triumph Over’ Madame Web’ Signals About a Shifting Box Office”) and perhaps, given the one-two punch of “The Marvels” and “Madame Web,” how female-led superhero films aren’t performing and aren’t the box office drivers they once, and briefly were during the era of “Wonder Woman” and “Captain Marvel” (the former grossing $800 million worldwide, the latter earning more than $1.1 billion at the global box office).
Given the retraction, regression, and backlash we’ve seen from the diversity age of 2018 and 2019—when the aforementioned films and “Black Panther” were being celebrated as milestone firsts to cheer on—it is easy to see a scenario where studios start to become gunshy, even despite the massive success of the female-led “Barbie,” which obviously is not a superhero film.
This is all to say that Sony’s failure with “Madame Web” may damage more than just Sony’s dubious superhero brand and an industry that is aching because its top earners—once the guaranteed hit of superhero films—are, off course and just not bringing in the numbers they used to. 2024 is supposed to be the year superhero movies recover from their terrible 2023 narrative. But if Sony drops three big losers this year, which is entirely possible given their track record, how much does that hold everyone back, even if Marvel triumphs in the summer with “Deadpool & Wolverine”?
We probably sound like a broken record here in this admittedly somewhat incomplete thesis. That said, the once unassailable capes and webs seem to be undoubtedly fraying. While DC and Marvel get their houses back in order—director James Gunn staying out of the fight properly until summer 2025—many of us underestimate the “rising tide lifts all boats” maxim. Kevin Feige once suggested the same: he’s rooting for DC because it helps the entirety of the genre if everyone is doing well. Four DC misfires, “The Marvels” and “Ant-Man 3,” backfired in 2023, and now “Madame Web,” and potentially more turkeys from Sony coming later this year: does this not start to send a signal to audiences even if its implicit and unconscious? If this genre wants to course-correct, everyone must be firing on all cylinders.
What’s next for Sony and Spider-Man beyond all this? According to recent reports, Marvel and Sony are potentially butting heads about the direction of “Spider-Man 4” and how soon to release it (Sony allegedly wants it before the end of the year 2025, but Marvel may feel like that’s too much). A rushed ‘Spider-Man’ movie won’t do anyone, or the genre, any favors, but perhaps when an organization is floundering, this is when execs panic and a time when studios make their greatest critical mistakes.
