Update, Wednesday March 16 at 6:42 p.m.: Sydney Sweeney is joining Dakota Johnson in Sony’s Spider-Verse. Deadline is reporting that Sweeney will be making the jump from TV critical darling to raking in that comic book movie money. Sweeney’s role has yet to be announced, but it would be funny if she played the Sonyverse version of William Stryker. Would it make any sense? No. But Brian Cox played Cassie, so it’s only fair that Sweeney take a stab at his character from X2.
Original story follows.
Madame Web and Dakota Johnson have one thing in common: their alleged involvement in hostage situations. Is this Dakota Johnson’s redemption arc after reportedly locking innocent civilians in a Blue Bottle Coffee? Sony is reportedly in talks with the Fifty Shades of Grey actress to play Madame Web in a new iteration of the Sony–Marvel cinematic universe, per Deadline. In Marvel comics from 1980 onward, Madame Web is depicted as an elderly woman afflicted by myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disorder that causes muscle weakness. She derives her life force from a weblike contraption that she remains connected to, meaning that she often doesn’t participate directly in missions. It’s difficult picturing Johnson, 32, aged forward as a clairvoyant, blind older woman, but I’m sure Sony’s special-effects team will have all hands on deck.
S.J. Clarkson is slated to direct the upcoming film. Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, who also wrote Spider-Man spinoff Morbius, penned the script. Johnson’s Madame Web is supposedly the first female superhero of the franchise, but that only counts if you exclude the animated Spider-Gwen from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The disrespect.