First Story Description for Sony’s Female-Led Spider-Man Spinoff Madame Web Surfaces

The first story details from Sony's Spider-Man spinoff Madame Web have arrived.

According to Variety, the film, starring Fifty Shades of Grey's Dakota Johnson and Euphoria's Sydney Sweeney, "will serve as an origin story for Madame Web, a clairvoyant whose psychic abilities allow her to see within the spider world itself." Johnson stars in the title role while Sweeney's role has not been disclosed. But Sweeney teased the challenges of her mysterious Marvel role when she was cast. "I like to try and find characters that are challenging for me in multiple different ways, and are completely different from one another," Sweeney said. "I want to continue to shock people with the characters that I play when they don't expect that I would choose that next."

Created by writer Denny O'Neil and artist John Romita Jr., the clairvoyant Madame Web/Cassandra Webb made her first appearance in 1980's The Amazing Spider-Man #210. Webb is partially paralyzed and blind due to myasthenia gravis. Her husband, Jonathan Webb, created a specialized life support system made of tubes shaped like a spider web. Webb passed on her abilities to Julia Carpenter/Spider-Woman right before she died at the hands of Sasha Kravinoff. Webb's psychic abilities had a great influence on Spider-Man both in the comics and the '90s Spider-Man: The Animated Series, where she gathered several Spider-Man variants from across the multiverse to stop Spider-Carnage from destroying it. Johnson has not stated which version of the character she will be portraying in the film adaptation.

Madame Web was first reported to be in the works in 2019, with Morbius writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless tapped as the screenwriters. Frequent Jessica Jones and The Defenders director S.J. Clarkson helms the film, which will begin production this spring. With Web's mystical abilities possibly making her the answer to the MCU's Doctor Strange, Sony believes this film will help connect their Spider-Man universe with Tom Hardy's Venom and Jared Leto's Morbius as well as other upcoming projects, including Kraven the Hunter with Aaron-Taylor Johnson, El Muerto with Bad Bunny and a secret project to be directed by Olivia Wilde. Sony is also planning a fourth installment in the MCU Spider-Man series, which Sony hopes will reunite actors Tom Holland and Zendaya and director Jon Watts.

Madame Web will debut in theaters on July 7, 2023.

Source: Variety