After the huge success of Spiderman: No way Home, Sony is all set to expand on its Marvel characters, according to reports Dakota Johnson is in talks to star in the studio’s Madame Web movie. The movie will be directed by S.J. Clarkson and Burk Sharpless will pen the screenplay with Kerem Sanga also penning a previous draft.
Madame Web first appeared in Marvel’s comic book The Amazing Spider-Man #210, published in 1980, and was created by writer Denny O’Neil. Madame Web is an elderly woman with myasthenia gravis and thus was connected to a life support system that looked like a spider web. Due to her age and medical condition Madame Web has never been actively involved in the action or fought any villain. According to sources, it was predicted that the project could turn into something else. Insiders say due to her psychic sensory powers, she is essentially Sony’s version of Doctor Strange.
Madam Web has played a two different characters which have held the mantle of Madame Web in Marvel history. The original was Cassandra Webb, depicted as an older, infirm, blind woman with precognitive powers whose life support system resembled a spiderweb. It’s difficult to imagine that character at the center of a superhero movie, but in a 2011 comic Webb died and passed on her powers (and blindness) to Julia Carpenter, the former Spider-Woman. Carpenter has been Madame Web ever since and seems like more of a fit for Johnson.
Sony topped the box office collection with Venom: Let There Be Carnage making more than $500 million worldwide, while Spider-Man: No Way Home has become the biggest film of 2021 with $1.7 billion in worldwide sales.