‘Madame Web’ bombs at box office with one of worst Marvel returns ever

Madame Web has registered one of the weakest box office opening weeks of all time for a film based on a Marvel character.

The film was released into cinemas around the world on February 14, and in its first six days, it took just $26.2 million (£20.8 million) in the US, and a further $25.7 million (£20.4 million) internationally. This represents an underperformance, even compared to Sony’s recent Morbius, which itself was seen as a commercial disappointment.

Based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, Madame Web stars Dakota Johnson in the lead role as a woman who develops psychic abilities. The White Lotus’ Sydney Sweeney co-stars, as do Emma Roberts and Adam Scott.

Directed by S.J. Clarkson (Anatomy of a Scandal) and co-written by Clarkson, Claire Parker, Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (Morbius, Dracula Untold), the film was met with an initial wave of negative reviews after its Los Angeles premiere, with some labelling it “an embarrassing mess”.

The Hollywood Reporter now notes that hopes of a franchise based off of Madame Web have been severely diminished. Sony had hoped to use the film to launch a series of spinoffs, featuring the characters portrayed by Sweeney, Isabela Merced and Celeste O’Connor, but those now seem highly unlikely.

“We’re not going to see another Madame Web movie for another decade plus,” said one industry insider to the publication.

The most recent instalment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was The Marvels, which made just $47 million (£38m) in its opening weekend in the US, the lowest opening in the MCU since 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. Similarly, the most recent DC Extended Universe film, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, took just $27.7 million (£22m), the fourth lowest total so far in that franchise.

It comes after Johnson recently said that acting on the set of Madame Web, with a high volume of CGI effects, was “absolutely psychotic”.

“I’ve never really done a movie where you are on a blue screen, and there’s fake explosions going off, and someone’s going, ‘Explosion!’ and you act like there’s an explosion. That to me was absolutely psychotic,” she said.

“I was like, ‘I don’t know if this is going to be good at all! I hope that I did an okay job!’ But I trusted [Clarkson]. She works so hard, and she has not taken her eyes off this movie since we started.”

Madame Web exists within Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, which has previously included the films Venom (2018), Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) and Morbius (2022).

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