A new report claims that the opening weekend box office bomb for S. J. Clarkson’s Madame Web film killed Sony’s plans for multiple spin-off franchises.
Ezekiel (Tahar Rahim) in Columbia Pictures MADAME WEB.
The film only grossed $15.3 million in its opening domestic weekend. It has earned a total of $26 million domestically and another $25.7 million internationally for a global gross of $51.7 million and might not even top $100 million based on the its current legs.
Word of mouth on the film was so bad an anonymous theater executive told The Hollywood Reporter, “On Wednesday night, you could actually watch advance purchase sales declining in real time as buyers were refunding their tickets.”
The executive added, “It really says something when you’d rather have Shazam! 2 numbers.”
Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson), Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney) and Mattie Franklin (Celeste OConnor) in Columbia Pictures MADAME WEB.
READ: ‘Madame Web’ Bombs In Its Opening Weekend At The Box Office, Only Brings In $15.3M
The Hollywood Reporter’s Pamela McClintock and James Hibberd also shared that the film’s box office disaster scrapped plans that Sony had to franchise Madame Web with potential sequels and spin-offs.
The duo wrote, “The feature’s collapse doesn’t just impact this film, but a new potential franchise led by star Dakota Johnson that Sony had hoped to spin out.”
Cassandra Webb/Madame Web (Dakota Johnson) in Columbia Pictures MADAME WEB.
On top of killing a possible Madame Web franchise, it also scrapped plans for spinoffs featuring Sydney Sweeney’s Julia Cornwall, Celeste O’Connor’s race-swapped Mattie Franklin, and Isabela Merced’s Anya Corazón.
One Hollywood veteran told the outlet, “We’re not going to see another Madame Web movie for another decade-plus.”
The veteran added, “It failed. Sony tried to make a movie that was a different type of superhero movie.”
Tahar Rahim as Ezekiel Sims in Madame Web (2024), Sony Pictures
Not only did the film’s box office failure kill Sony’s plans for multiple franchises, but The Hollywood Reporter claims the company’s gambit at trying to appeal solely to females also failed. Another anonymous Hollywood veteran said, “I don’t know if women are enough to carry the box office here.”
In fact, the report claims that females only made up 46% of the moviegoing audience for Madame Web.
Cassandra Webb/Madame Web (Dakota Johnson) in Columbia Pictures MADAME WEB.
READ: Report: Gen Z, Women Abandon ‘The Marvels,’ Only 19% Of Film’s Audience Between The Age Of 18 And 24
It’s not very surprising that females were uninterested in the movie, The Marvels suffered a similar fate back in November. Box Office Pro revealed that only 39% of moviegoers were female while 61% were male.
That statistic must have been especially humiliating for the film’s Executive Producer Mary Livanos who had previously claimed the movie was designed to specifically appeal to women.
She told Games Radar, “The Avengers movies are these epic conclusions to chapters of storytelling, whereas this is a team-up within the narrative that we didn’t necessarily expect for Marvel.”
“Usually, you wait for characters to show up all together in Avengers movies,” she added. “We were excited to design a team-up featuring characters that women from all walks of life could relate to.”
(L-R): Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, and Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2023 MARVEL.
What do you make of this report that Sony’s plans for franchising Madame Web have been scrapped due to the film’s disastrous opening at the box office?
NEXT: Rumor: Marvel’s Initial Idea For X-Men Is To “Focus More On The Female Members Of The Team”
