Who is Madame Web? Dakota Johnson in talks to star in MCU Spider-Man spinoff

According to Deadline, Fifty Shades series’ star Dakota Johnson is in talks to play Madame Web in Sony’s Spider-Man spinoff universe.

The publication also reported that Netflix X Marvel’s Defenders and Jessica Jones director S.J. Clarkson is set to helm the project. Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless have written the screenplay, as mentioned in earlier reports.

The project is likely to be a live-action feature film. As per Marvel insider Charles Murphy’s tweet in January, the movie is set to begin production in 2022. If Johnson does get the role, it would be the first female-led Marvel X Sony film.

This movie is one of the many Marvel character-based projects Sony is developing. Previously, films about Kraven the hunter and Black Cat, amongst others, made the news.

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Who is Madame Web to Spider-Man?

Cassandra Webb, aka Madame Web, is a blind lady with psychic powers. Since her birth, she has been blind and suffers from a neurological condition, myasthenia gravis. Her disorder gave her strong psychic abilities in the comics, which included telepathy and foreknowledge of future events. The character can also astrally project herself and had mind-altering powers.

Webb made her debut in 1980’s Amazing Spider-Man #210 and helped Spider-Man locate some criminals. Since her debut, she has become a wise consultant-of-sorts to the web crawler, and occasionally helps him with her premonitions.

The psychic mutant serves as a guide to Peter Parker and warns him of the consequences of his decisions. In the comics, her ability to know about the future enabled her to help prevent assassinations with Spider-Man.

Web in her wheelchair in the comics (Image via Marvel Comics)

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Weaknesses

Unlike traditional super-powered individuals, Madame Web does not fight criminals physically. In the comics, Cassandra Webb’s neurological disorder caused her to become paralyzed.

Webb’s late husband Jonathan built her a wheelchair with built-in life-support functions for her survival. However, the character later gained immortality after she attended the "Gathering of Five ritual."

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Theories about the upcoming film

While Cassandra Webb is typically portrayed as an older woman in the comics, Sony’s film will likely go on a different route. It is also plausible that Dakota Johnson’s potential version of the character would be of Julia Carpenter and not Cassandra Webb.

In the comics, Carpenter was initially introduced as a version of Spider-Woman, who later took on the mantle of Madame Web. However, it is also likely that Sony may opt for a younger version of Web in the story.

In October of last year, Sony added two “Untitled Sony/Marvel Universe” movies to its release schedule for 2023. The untitled projects are slated to release on June 23, 2023, and October 6, 2023.

At the time, multiple speculations suggested that one of the dates might be Venom 3 or Morbius 2. However, now it seems that at least one of the dates will be the upcoming Madame Web movie.