Warning: This post spoils one key detail from Madame Web, though frankly, that detail is also spoiled in the headline.
There are many reasons a person might want to watch Madame Web. You might want to watch it for Dakota Johnson, whose ability to exude puckish disappointment extends here to the very movie she’s starring in. You might want to watch Madame Web for its labored tie-ins to the greater Spider-Man universe, which it delivers with an almost impressive level of faux coyness. (“Oh, this baby right here? Whatever you do, please don’t ask me its name!â€) You may even want to watch it for the hilarity of seeing a movie whose heroine averts terrible visions of the future end with a teaser for a sequel that is definitely not happening.
But if you’re thinking of buying a ticket to experience the moment Johnson’s titular Madame Web delivers the famous line from the trailer — “He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died†— don’t bother. It isn’t in the movie!
If you decide to watch Madame Web despite this, it’s easy to spot where the line would have gone. Near the end of Act Two, Johnson’s Cassandra Web delivers a bunch of exposition to the three teenage girls she’s trying to protect. When she gets around to explaining Tahar Rahim’s villain, I could sense the anticipation in my preview audience. A slight intake of breath: Here it comes! However, while the gist of what she tells them is that he was with her mother in the Amazon when she was researching spiders right before she died, she does not do so all in one sentence. By my count, only four of the 17 words in the trailer are uttered together: “She was researching spiders.†As you might suspect, it sounds far more natural this way.
Now, this is hardly a rare occurrence for big studio films. The phenomenon of missing trailer moments is so common there’s an entire TVTropes page devoted to it. And the quality that made the trailer moment so iconic, its determination to shoehorn as many clauses as possible into one sentence, does speak to a line that was likely ADR’d in after shooting to make the backstory crystal clear to potential viewers. People watching Madame Web don’t need reminding what happened to Cassandra’s mother when she was in the Amazon researching spiders right before she died, because the very first scene of the movie shows us exactly what happened when she was in the Amazon researching spiders right before she died.
Still, after all the hubbub about Ana de Armas not being in Yesterday, I hope this information will save any disappointed viewers of Madame Web a lot of money in legal fees.