Madame Web (2024 Film)

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About

Madame Web refers to the 2024 movie adaptation of Marvel Comics Madame Web character, which was released on February 14th, 2024. The film's cast was announced in early February 2022, with actress Dakota Johnson playing the leading heroin Madame Web and Sydney Sweeney playing Julia Cornwall, aka Spider-Woman. In mid-November 2023, the first trailer for the movie was released on the internet, sparking memes and reactions online, most notably the "He Was in the Amazon With My Mom When She Was Researching Spiders Right Before She Died" line that became a meme.

History

On February 3rd, 2022, Deadline^[1] tabloid revealed that actress Dakota Johnson was rumored to be leading role in Sony Pictures Entertainment's next film "Mamade Web" in the Spider-Man cinematic universe. On November 15th, 2023, the studio shared the first trailer for the upcoming movie^[2] (shown below), amassing over 7 million views and 69,000 likes in a day.

According to a People^[3] magazine article, Dakota Johnson stars in the titular role of a mutant who has psychic sensory powers that allow her to predict the future of other superheroes in the universe. The film is expected to arrive in theaters in February 2024.

Online Reaction

The movie's trailer quickly spread to Twitter / X, where it was criticized for its poor quality and similarities with low-budget TV Shows. For example, on November 15th, 2023, X^[4] user @Vaughanilla_ retweeted Madame Web's trailer with the caption "Mid-2000’s superhero movies are so back," which amassed over 10,000 likes and 427 retweets in a day.

On the same day, X^[5] user @Lunwi88 posted a montage image of superhero movies from the 2000s, including a still frame from Madame Web's villain (shown below, left), which garnered over 31,000 likes and 2,000 retweets in a day. X^[6] user @rosedommu shared an image of Miss Spider from the 1996 animation James and The Giant Peach (shown below, right) paired with the caption "The only madame web I care about." The post amassed roughly 2,300 likes and 169 retweets in a day.

Criticism of Film

Following the release of Madame Web on February 14th, 2024, the film was widely criticized, receiving a score of 14% on Rotten Tomatoes.^[7] Online, moviegoers posted their reactions to the film, many of them emphasizing the purported low quality of the movie in a manner similar to how moviegoers to 2022's Morbius, another critically-panned but widely-memes Sony film.

For example, @adamtotscomix posted their review of the film, claiming to like it for being bad and receiving over 62,000 likes in a day on February 18th (seen below left).^[7] @OnlineAlison posted about the "weird place" the movie brought her brain to (seen below right) receiving over 46,000 likes in a day on February 18th.^[8]

Viewers of the film were also disappointed that the highly memed line from the trailer, He Was in the Amazon With My Mom When She Was Researching Spiders Right Before She Died did not make it into the final cut of the film.^[9]

Dakota Johnson Press Tour

Star Dakota Johnson's press tour for the film's release also received considerable attention online. When a Huffington Post UK interviewer asked Johnson about the memes surrounding the film, she coolly claimed to not be online. The TikTok video posted by Huffington Post containing this exchange (seen below) received over 1.4 million views and nearly 68,000 likes in twelve days after being posted on February 7th, 2024.^[10]

In another memorable incident, an earthquake occurred during Johnson's interview with Entertainment Tonight. A TikTok post (seen below) showing this event received over 2.4 million views and 215,000 likes over the course of ten days after it was posted on February 9th, 2024.^[11]

He Was in the Amazon With My Mom When She Was Researching Spiders Right Before She Died

He Was in the Amazon With My Mom When She Was Researching Spiders Right Before She Died refers to a quote turned copypasta from the Madame Web trailer which went viral on Twitter / X in November 2023. The Spider-Man spin-off movie, starring Dakota Johnson as Madame Web and Sydney Sweeney as Julia Carpenter (aka Spider-Woman), gained memes and reactions on Twitter on the day of its release, centering on the "He was in the Amazon…" line due to the perception that the delivery was forced and cringy as evident in the memes that mocked it. The man referenced in the line was Ezekiel Sims, played by actor Tahar Rahim.