Sydney Sweeney says she did ‘Madame Web’ to “build a relationship with Sony”
Sydney Sweeney has opened up more about starring in Sony Pictures‘ Madame Web, which she has described as a “strategic business decision”.
Speaking to GQ UK recently, Sweeney responded to the film’s negative reception and co-star Dakota Johnson‘s comments about the film’s production and flop at the box office. While Johnson said she “probably will never do anything like it again”, Sweeney’s open to taking another crack at the film: “I think that if the story is right and you have the right team, I would love to.”
However, Sweeney also revealed that her decision to act in Madame Web was more of a business move than anything else: “To me that film was a building block, it’s what allowed me to build a relationship with Sony. Without doing Madame Web I wouldn’t have a relationship with the decision-makers over there.”
She went on to explain: “Everything in my career I do not just for that story, but strategic business decisions. Because I did that, I was able to sell Anyone But You. I was able to get Barbarella.”
Anyone But You, a romantic comedy starring Sweeney and Glen Powell, released in January, and became a smash hit at the box office, even becoming the best-performing R-rated comedy since Bridget Jones’ Baby in 2016.
Madame Web, however, premiered in 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. The film has so far failed to garner any commercial success, rending it a “flop” at the box office.
This isn’t the first time Sweeney has spoken about Madame Web. Earlier this month, Sweeney revealed that the film’s bust hasn’t really affected her as others might expect. While this is the first box office flop of Sweeney’s career, she told The Los Angeles Times that she was “just along for the ride”. “I was just hired as an actress in it, so I was just along for the ride for whatever was going to happen,” she said.
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Surej Singh
NME
