Sony is throwing a little Fifty Shades of Grey into their next Marvel movie.
Variety reports that Dakota Johnson is in talks to play Madame Web in the studio’s next standalone Marvel movie. While the deal is not closed, insiders close to the project say it’s pretty much a done deal.
S.J. Clarkson (Jessica Jones) will direct the feature from a screenplay by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (Morbius). That’s a combination that makes me feel both excited (Jessica Jones, yay!) and worried (Morbius, yikes!).
As you’ll see in the image above, Johnson isn’t exactly a spitting image of the comics’ version of Madame Web. But, I mean, this is the same studio that cast Marisa Tomei as a no-longer-95-year-old Aunt May. I have to say that if there is a single studio dedicated to stopping Meryl Streep from entering the Marvel Universe it’s Sony.
In the comics, Madame Web is “key in the interconnected multiverse” who “often appears as a side character in Spider-Man comics, where she is depicted as an elderly woman with myasthenia gravis, a chronic autoimmune disorder that requires her to connect to a life support system resembling a spiderweb.”
The multiverse has already been explored in recent Spider-Man films, particularly Into the Spider-Verse and No Way Home. It will be interesting to see what sort of shenanigans Madame Web will find herself in that would warrant her own solo film.
In addition to Madame Web, Sony is also developing solo projects centered on Marvel characters Kraven the Hunter, Jackpot, and Silk.
What do you think of Dakota Johnson as Madame Web? Do you think her solo film will help connect the various Sony Marvel films? Tell us your theories down in the comments!
