Spider-Woman
Sony’s Spider-Man-less Spider-Man universe has been male dominated to date, with two Venom films starring Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock, Jared Leto’s meme-tastic Morbius and soon enough, Aaron Taylor Johnson’s abs staring as Kraven. But now with Madame Web, we’re getting four Spider-Women at once, as showcased by this new trailer.
The film stars Dakota Johnson as the future-seeing Madame Web, a far cry from the much older version from the comics. Her visions are leading to a conflict with the film’s C-list spider villain, Ezekiel Sims, appearing as a sort of evil Spider-Man to try and attack the central quartet of women.
All of these women are bound to eventually become various Spider-Beings, as the trailer indicates, and their comic character names reveal. Much attention is being paid to Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney as Julia Carpenter, one of the versions of Spider-Woman, who will indeed suit up at one point in the film in classic black and white. There’s also Isabela Merced’s Anya Corazon as Spider-Girl (Merced will also play Hawkgirl in the DCU now). Finally, there’s Celeste O’Conner’s Mattie Franklin, yet again, another version of Spider-Woman.
It remains unclear what Sony’s ultimate goal is here. This will now make four Spider-Man universe films in a world without Spider-Man. It’s seemed like they were trying to build the Sinister Six, but now I’m wondering if the plan is to never actually get to Peter Parker, if he’s going to be indefinitely tied up with their Disney deal, and instead lean on one or all of these new Spider-Women to be the heroes to later take on the villains they’ve established in these other films. There have been rumors they may try to yank Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker back into the suit, or merge into the MCU proper, but at this point, it’s anyone’s guess what Sony is actually doing here.
How will Madame Web perform? As recent DC and MCU productions have shown, the superhero genre is in a real downturn, and I’d argue Madame Web is really going to be up against it, drawing on the star power of the likes of Dakota Johnson and Syndey Sweeney while hopefully avoiding Morbius-level reception in an attempt to channel the success of Venom instead. But it’s a real problem that no one outside of comic die-hards even know who Madame Web is, much less her supporting cast. That feels like an additional barrier to entry the other Sony films don’t have. I mean, not that anyone is dying for a Kraven the Hunter film in the first place, but he’s at the very least an iconic Spider-Man character. Madame Web, less so.
We’ll see how it goes. Madame Web will be out February 16, 2024, and we can find out then.
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