Madame Web actor Sydney Sweeney has opened up about the real reasons she starred in the Sony/Marvel box office misfire.
Released in February 2024 as the fourth installment in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, Madame Web served as an origin story for its title character, played by Dakota Johnson. Sweeney was one of Johnson’s three co-leads alongside Isabela Merced and Celeste O’Connor. In the movie, the three are targeted by the villainous clairvoyant Ezekiel Sims, who wants to kill them before they can kill him in the future.
Despite a relatively modest budget for a superhero movie ($80 million), Madame Web still managed to become a box office flop, grossing just over $100 million worldwide. The movie also received largely negative reviews from critics, with some calling it the worst superhero movie ever made.
Why did Sydney Sweeney do Madame Web?
However, Sweeney has now explained why exactly she decided to star in Madame Web. In a new interview with Empire, the actor shared the two reasons that fueled her decision to appear in the Sony/Marvel movie.
“I hadn’t done a studio film yet, and I had started my production company [Fifty-Fifty Films]. I had some properties that I really wanted to be able to take out to studios, and I needed to be able to get my name to have more value, within a studio household,” she explained.
Sweeney continued, “I also wanted to be able to do something that my cousins can watch. I have a bunch of little teenage cousins, and they don’t really understand what I do. I thought it would be so cool to be able to do something that they’d actually think was fun and cool.”
Over a year later, Sweeney shared that she has no regrets about starring in Madame Web, noting that she “had a really fun time, so that is all that matters to me. I think that if you are enjoying what you do, it doesn’t really matter what the outcome is, on a box-office level. Of course, you want the film to be celebrated and loved and successful, because then everyone succeeds.”
Madame Web is currently streaming on Netflix.
Originally reported by Lee Freitag on SuperHeroHype.
