It Sounds Like ‘Madame Web’ Won’t Have to Carry This Specific Baggage Around

Madame Web‘s theatrical release date is just weeks away, and while it remains to be seen whether or not it will break the Sony Spider-Man Universe’s hot streak of bad movies, new revelations about its place in the continuity make for as good a sign as any.

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Madame Web director S. J. Clarkson offered some insight on how the film fits in with the rest of its cinematic universe brethren, and apparently, it doesn’t sound like it has any interest in fitting with them at all.

She’s definitely in a standalone world. I was able to just have free rein and let the movie be what it needed to be, as opposed to trying to force it into something else. That was a gift, in a way, to be able to take something and bring a fresh and I hope original take to it.

To be clear, the Sony Spider-Man Universe does not include the brilliant “Spider-Verse” films or any of Tom Holland’s installments. No, the SSU, as designated by Sony, consists of three films of questionable quality: Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and Morbius (whose most significant contribution to the world is one of history’s most exhausting memes).

So it’s safe to say that Madame Web‘s distinct departure from that particular world means that we can probably get our hopes up that much higher than they already were. It’s true that Morbius may have been functionally separate from the Venom films—which were critically panned but have a substantial cult following—but Madame Web seems to be the only one owning that independence.

Madame Web stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, a clairvoyant former paramedic who takes three young women (Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, and recent Superman: Legacy recruit Isabela Merced)—all of them fated to don a Spider-Person mantle of some sort—under her wing as they try to outsmart and outlast the tenacious hunter Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim). Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, Adam Scott, and Zosia Mamet also feature.

Madame Web hits theaters on February 14, 2024.

(featured image: Sony Pictures)