Summary
- Learning experience for Dakota Johnson reveals importance of artistic integrity over financial success in film industry.
- Madame Web’s low reception highlights disconnect between audience expectations and final product.
- Johnson acknowledges negative reactions, emphasizes importance of creating art with integrity, not financial considerations.
Madame Web debuted to lackluster box office and dismal reviews just three weeks ago and now the film’s star, Dakota Johnson, is addressing the negative reaction and appears to completely understand it. During an interview with Bustle, Johnson admitted that the finished product wasn’t the movie she signed up for, but she still views all of it as a learning experience, although she doubts she will make a film like Madame Web again.
“It was definitely an experience for me to make that movie. I had never donee anything like it before. I probably will never do anything like it again because I don’t make sense in that world. And I know that now.”
Madame Web
1/5
- Release Date
- February 14, 2024
- Runtime
- 1hr 57min
- Studio
- Columbia Pictures, Marvel Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE)
- Franchise
- Marvel
Taking the negativity in stride, the actress said, “it’s not nice to be part of something that’s ripped to shreds,” but she seems to understand it, but did reiterate that sometimes what you sign up for isn’t what is made once you get on set.
“But 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?’ But it was a real learning experience, and of course it’s not nice to be a part of something that’s ripped to shreds, but I can’t say I don’t understand.”
Madame Web Continues Sony’s Spider-Man Universe Woes
Madame Web was directed by S.J. Clarkson and stars Johnson as Cassie Webb, a young woman who is confronting her past amid gaining new abilities while also trying to save three young girls and their futures from Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), a villain that has had visions of his demise at the hands of these women. The movie carries a dreadfully low 12 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and a poor 57 percent audience score on the site. The box office has also been soft, with the film grossing a mere $90 million worldwide to date on a reported $80 million budget, with other reports indicating the budget may have been even higher.
The film has become the butt of many jokes, even from one of the film’s stars, Sydney Sweeney. The actress, who plays Julia Cornwall in the film, recently appeared on Saturday Night Live and took a crack at the film during her opening monologue by saying, “You might have seen me in Anyone But You or Euphoria. You definitely did not see me in Madame Web.”
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The biggest learning experience that Johnson has seemed to have learned is that audiences are quick to sniff out if a film is bad and that movies need to be made by artists that aren’t guided by figures and algorithms. She added:
“Films are made by a filmmaker and a team of artists around them. You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms. 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 bulls***.”
Madame Web
is currently playing in theaters nationwide.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
