Madame Web's Box Office Is Bad Enough To Squash Sony's Spider-Man Spin-Off Plans
Sony Pictures needs to head back to the drawing board with its Marvel universe because "Madame Web" crashed and burned in every way imaginable over the weekend. The studio's latest "Spider-Man" franchise spin-off film hit theaters on Valentine's Day against "Bob Marley: One Love." Conventional wisdom would tell you that the superhero movie would easily beat the middle-of-the-road music biopic. That's not what happened and, frankly, it wasn't even close.
"Madame Web" pulled in just $26.2 million across its first six days of release, counting from Wednesday through the Monday President's Day holiday. It made just $15.3 million over the weekend, coming in second to "One Love." The biopic pulled in a surprisingly large $28.6 million over the weekend and $52 million over its first six days, including a record-breaking opening day in Jamaica. Paramount gets to celebrate, while Sony is left to pick up the pieces because it's only going to get worse from here for the company's big comic book adaptation.
The movie now ranks as one of the worst-reviewed Marvel Comics films in history, currently sitting at just 13% on Rotten Tomatoes (you can read /Film's review here). That led to terrible word of mouth and it is expected to fall off a cliff in its second weekend. The odds of "Madame Web" even matching the $167 million global total posted by "Morbius" in 2022 are slim. When the hurdle to clear is lower than one of the biggest blockbuster bombs of a given year, things are truly dire.
Madame Web joins another famed Marvel flop
SJ Clarkson directed "Madame Web," which centers on a paramedic played by Dakota Johnson who gains clairvoyance and has to use her powers to help save several Spider-Women of the future. Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O'Connor, Tahar Rahim, Adam Scott, and Emma Roberts round out the ensemble. Sony had very clearly and deliberately planned to use this film to launch several spin-offs/sequels. Whatever plans may have existed now must be abandoned, but the ripple effects are sure to be felt beyond this movie's isolated corner of the larger Marvel multiverse.
As far as comparisons go, the company that this movie finds itself in is unwelcome. It is the first Marvel Comics movie to fail to open at number one since 2019's "Dark Phoenix," which came in at a fairly distant second to "The Secret Life of Pets" with an opening weekend of just $32.8 million.
Sony had great success with 2018's "Venom" which, despite poor reviews, earned a whopping $856 million worldwide. Its sequel, 2021's "Let There Be Carnage," did similarly well, pulling in $502 million globally in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic theater shutdowns. That's why we're getting "Venom 3" later this year. But the studio has struggled mightily to make these other "Spider-Man" character spin-off films work. "Morbius" and "Madame Web" are both critical disasters whose only shot at a future is gaining cult status based on camp value. Luckily, they both carried sub-$100 million budgets, making them cheap relative to most superhero movies. That said, "Madame Web" still stands to lose a fortune in its theatrical run based on the early numbers.
Where does Sony go from here with its Marvel universe?
"Kraven the Hunter," which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Russell Crowe, is due to hit theaters later this year and will represent perhaps Sony's last chance to save what they're trying to build with the Marvel Comics characters they control. If that R-rated superhero romp fails to deliver the goods at the box office, they may need to scrap this concept of building out franchises based on obscure, second-tier characters. At this point, "Venom" is proving to be the exception rather than the rule.
Beyond the "Spider-Man" expanded universe of it all, superheroes have, in general, been struggling mightily at the box office over the last year and change. In 2023, "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" was the only outright successful live-action comic book movie. Everything else disappointed, with DC having a legendarily bad year between "Blue Beetle," "The Flash," and "Shazam! Fury of the Gods." Sony did, however, have a big hit with the animated "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse." But that movie has the benefit of being able to use Spider-Man in the title.
Who knows? Maybe ten years ago Sony could have pieced something together but, the way things are going, it seems like it's time to stop this train dead in its tracks and invest in something else.
"Madame Web" is in theaters now.