Sony’s Hard Spider-Man Lessons

Celeste O'Connor, Sydney Sweeney, Dakota Johnson and Isabela Merced
Madame Web lacked the one requirement of a superhero spinoff—it was only tenuously connected to a franchise. Photo: Lionel Hahn/WireImage
Scott Mendelson
February 19, 2024

Madame Web, which has grossed merely $25.5 million this six-day weekend, isn’t the first big-deal superhero movie to tank at the box office. But the film’s critical and commercial rejection should be the final nail in the coffin for Sony’s failed attempt to fashion a cinematic universe entirely around Spider-Man, more than 20 years after Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man.