Madame Web is the latest addition to Sony’s Spider-Man movie universe, following on the heels of Venom, the upcoming Kraven the Hunter, and the infamous Morbius disaster. The new trailer, above, suggests that the movie may-or-may not be sort-of connected to the Spiderverse movies as well? But that’s about as clear as anything else going on in here.
Here’s the official synopsis:
“Meanwhile, in another universe…” In a switch from the typical genre, Madame Web tells the standalone origin story of one of Marvel publishing’s most enigmatic heroines. The suspense-driven thriller stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, a paramedic in Manhattan who may have clairvoyant abilities. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she forges a relationship with three young women destined for powerful futures…if they can all survive a deadly present.
A few of my neighbors worked on this movie — and I remember, at the time, even they were confused about what the hell the movie was about, or how it connected to anything spider-y. In the comics, Cassandra Webb is a geriatric clairvoyant — not exactly the kind of role you’d typically envision for Dakota Johnson. Ezekiel Stane — the creepy not-Spider-Man villain you see in the trailer there — was a grey-haired billionaire who was introduced in the first arc of J. Michael Straczynski’s run on Amazing Spider-Man. That storyline introduced the idea of spider-totems, super-powered representatives of a higher order … which in turn, led into the original Spiderverse storyline, which was much more mystical and high-fantasy focused than the movie version.
The movie also appears to feature Julia Carpenter, the second Spider-Woman; Mattie Franklin, the third Spider-Woman who’s also the adopted daughter of J. Jonah Jameson; and the similarly-Spider-themed Araña. Curiously absent is Jessica Drew, the original Spider-Woman, whose character is somehow both more and less convoluted than anything else I just wrote above.
None of that really matters for the movie trailer above, which just looks like an epic shitshow with the proportionate strength of a radioactive spider.
