Sony's Spider-Man spinoff Madame Web has landed a summer 2023 release date.
According to Deadline, the film, starring Sydney Sweeney and Dakota Johnson, will debut in theaters on July 7, 2023. Johnson will play the title role while details regarding Sweeney's character are being kept under wraps. However, the Euphoria and White Lotus star said that "I like to try and find characters that are challenging for me in multiple different ways, and are completely different from one another. I want to continue to shock people with the characters that I play when they don't expect that I would choose that next." S.J. Clarkson will direct the Sony production, which will begin filming later this year.
The Madame Web announcement comes as Sony reshuffles its upcoming film slate. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) moved from Oct. 7, 2022, to June 2, 2023. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part Two) is now dated for March 29, 2024.
The shuffle means Sony's Spider-Man films will join a crowded summer 2023 box office landscape. Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) will now open one week before Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, while Madame Web will precede Mission: Impossible 7 by one week. Meanwhile, Disney has an untitled live-action film debuting one week before Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part Two).
Created by writer Denny O'Neil and artist John Romita Jr., Madame Web / Cassandra Webb first appeared in 1980's The Amazing Spider-Man #210. An elderly woman with myasthenia gravis, Madame Web is a psychic mutant with the ability to see the future and use telepathy. She is eventually killed by the villain Sasha Kravinoff, but is able to pass along her powers to the younger Julia Carpenter before she passes. It is unclear which version of the character Johnson will portray.
Madame Web will join Sony's growing list of spinoff films focused on Spider-Man villains and secondary characters. While the studio found box office success with Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage, it's most recent outing Morbius disappointed at the box office and with critics. On deck is Kraven the Hunter, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, an unknown project directed by Olivia Wilde and the inevitable next film in the official Spider-Man franchise.
Source: Deadline
