Summary
- Dakota Johnson wasn’t initially confident in her ability to act in a movie with heavy special effects, but trusted the director and worked hard to bring Cassandra Webb to life.
- Sydney Sweeney was thrilled to land the role of Julia Cornwall/Carpenter and immediately immersed herself in the comics to learn more about her character.
- Fans can expect to see a variety of characters showcased in Madame Web, including a pair of Spider-Women and Spider-Girl.
Cassandra Webb’s future-seeing spider-sense is tingling! And, in less than three weeks, Sony’s latest addition to their live-action Spider-Verse swings into theaters. The highly anticipated Madame Web stars Dakota Johnson in the lead role, but the actress admits she wasn’t 100% sure she’d pulled off the part of the “Creepy Clairvoyant.” Johnson said in an exclusive interview with Entertainment Weekly:
“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. 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 her [director S.J. Clarkson]. She works so hard, and she has not taken her eyes off this movie since we started.”
Johnson is arguably best known for portraying Anastasia Steele in the Fifty Shades of Grey film trilogy, but the actress’ seemingly unlimited capacity to play any part written for her makes Johnson perfectly suited to bringing this big-screen adaptation of Marvel Comics’ Cassandra Webb to life.
Madame Web’s Opening-Weekend Forecast Currently Trails Morbius’ Record-Low $39 Million
Madame Web isn’t showing particularly strong in its long-range box office forecast, even trailing Morbius’ $39-million opening weekend.
Sydney Sweeney Plays Spider-Woman
Like co-star Dakota Johnson, actress Sydney Sweeney is making her debut in Sony’s live-action Spider-Verse when Madame Web drops in theaters this February. Sweeney is portraying the role of Julia Cornwall — she’ll eventually marry and become Julia Carpenter, at least she does in the source material — who first appears in the pages of Marvel Comics’ Secret Wars (1984). And Sweeney revealed the first thing she did when the actress landed the role of Julia. Sweeney said in an interview with Variety:
I was freaking out, of course. I went straight to the comic store, and I bought every comic that mentioned my character.
Sweeney added:
I think it’s different from what people expect a superhero movie to be. Quote that! That’s a quote, because the tabloids will pick up everything else we talk about.
In the comic books, Julia Cornwall/Carpenter is one of the Spider-Verse’s superheroes, and glimpses of Sweeney’s costumed persona do show up in the Madame Web trailer. Fans of the comic books already know Julia will become Spider-Woman, but it’ll be interesting to see just how much of Cassandra Webb and Julia Carpenter’s superpowers are shown off in their first big-screen adventure — to say nothing of Isabela Merced’s Anya Corazon (Spider-Girl) or Celeste O’Connor’s own version of Spider-Woman, aka Mattie Franklin.
Madame Web opens exclusively in theaters on Valentine’s Day.
And fans can check out the official trailer for Madame Web right now. Plus, be sure and watch Sydney Sweeney’s recent appearance on Hot Ones, as she shares stories about her career and her first Spider-Verse appearance below:
