Madame Web is officially out in theaters now, and if it was Sony’s goal to prove to the world that they hadn’t yet scraped the bottom of the superhero movie barrel with Morbius, they can give themselves a hearty pat on the back.
Indeed, it’s equal parts infuriating and terrifying that someone allowed Madame Web to be distributed to theaters in the state that it’s in, but judging by a recent revelation from Dakota Johnson—the titular clairvoyant herself—the path to that final product may have been laid out right from the get-go.
Speaking recently to TheWrap, Johnson got as candid as she was probably legally allowed to by revealing that Madame Web‘s shooting script was egregiously different from the script that seemed to have initially drawn her to the project.
There were drastic changes, and I can’t even tell you what they were.
It doesn’t take much in the way of detective work to conclude that these script changes contributed heavily to Madame Web‘s eventual nosedive, but exactly how much of a ripple effect it had throughout the entire production is another question entirely.
It’s painfully clear, on the one hand, that none of the film’s stars had any faith in this new script whatsoever, which could at least explain the dire performances throughout. But on the other hand, the sheer carelessness with which the film was edited (as shown by one Ezekiel Sims; if you know, you know), makes one wonder if Madame Web‘s best interests were ever on the agenda at all, rewrites or no rewrites.
In any case, Madame Web is a downright cruel reminder that there’s often a correlation between obtuse, mid-production rewrites and a sub-20 percent critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. At least the memes are dying out fast, though.
(featured image: Sony Pictures)
