Dakota Johnson isn’t holding back about the mess that was Madame Web. In a new interview, the actress addresses the 2024 Marvel film that bombed at the box office and earned her a Razzie for Worst Actress.
Johnson Blames Studio Meddling for Madame Web Collapse
At the mention of Madame Web, the interview with the LA Times notes that Johnson’s demeanor shifts. “Go on,” she says, with a sarcastic tone.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Johnson adds, slightly laughing. “There’s this thing that happens now where a lot of creative decisions are made by committee. Or made by people who don’t have a creative bone in their body.”
Johnson says the project started off one way and ended up something else entirely, and she was “just sort of along for the ride.” She says, “It’s really hard to make art that way.”
“And I think unfortunately with Madame Web, it started out as something and turned into something else. And I was just sort of along for the ride at that point. But that happens. Bigger-budget movies fail all the time. I don’t have a Band-Aid over it,” she said. “There’s no part of me that’s like, ‘Oh, I’ll never do that again’ to anything. I’ve done even tiny movies that didn’t do well. Who cares?”
Despite being destroyed by critics and fans alike, Madame Web found a brief second life as the #1 title on Netflix for a time. But that didn’t stop it from racking up three Razzies, including for Worst Picture, Worst Actress (Johnson), and Worst Screenplay.
It also sits as one of the worst-performing comic book movies ever with around $100 million worldwide. Still, it did better than Sony’s Kraven the Hunter, which reportedly only managed $62 million. So you can’t put the blame on the fanboys.
“You Cannot Make Art Based on Numbers and Algorithms”
In a previous interview, Johnson explained that she was sick during the film’s release and wasn’t able to promote it properly. After it came out, she admitted: “I was like, ‘Ugh.’ I can’t take any of it seriously at all.”
She also implied that Sony interfered with the original direction of the movie. Rumors have suggested the film was meant to include Spider-Man and multiverse elements before studio meddling stripped that away.
“Films are made by a filmmaker and a team of artists. Art does not do well when it’s made by committee,” she told Bustle back in March of 2021. “Audiences are extremely smart, and executives have started to believe that they’re not.”
Johnson went on to slam the industry’s reliance on data-driven decisions and warned against the rise of AI in filmmaking.
“Audiences will always be able to sniff out bullshit,” she said. “Even if films start to be made with AI, humans aren’t going to f-cking want to see those.”
Done With Superhero Films?
Don’t expect to see her in spandex again anytime soon.
“I probably will never do anything like it again because I don’t make sense in that world,” Johnson said. “Sometimes in this industry, you sign on to something, and it’s one thing, and then as you’re making it, it becomes a completely different thing.”
She called it a “real learning experience,” and admitted it wasn’t fun to be “ripped to shreds,” but said she gets why it happened.
Madame Web also starred Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O’Connor.
What’s next for Dakota Johnson?
As for what’s next, Johnson is sticking to smaller projects through her company TeaTime Pictures, like Materialists with Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal (out June 13), Daddio, and Splitsville, which just premiered at Cannes.
IMDb also lists Johnson as starring in Verity, which recently completed filming, where she plays Lowen Ashleigh, who gets hired by Jeremy Crawford (Josh Hartnett) to ghostwrite novels for his bestselling author wife Verity (Anne Hathaway), who’s unable to finish after an accident. Lowen uncovers Verity’s disturbing truths while residing at the Crawfords’ home to work.
