Sydney Sweeney not concerned by Madame Web reviews: 'I was just hired as an actress'

Martin Macdonald - 14 March 2024, 15:00 Share

Madame Web has become a punchline since its release due to the scathing reviews it received from fans and critics.

The Spider-Man Universe project was released last month but was a huge failure, being mauled by critics, with box office earnings of $96 million on a budget of $80m - and that doesn't take into account marketing costs.

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The failure of the movie doesn't seem to have impacted star Sydney Sweeney too much, though, as she is currently riding high off the success of Anyone But You, while new horror movie Immaculate is receiving positive reviews.

For Sweeney, it seems like Madame Web was just a job.

“I was just hired as an actress in it, so I was just along for the ride for whatever was going to happen," she told the LA Times.

Dakota Johnson, who played the lead in the movie, previously admitted that she wasn't surprised by the reception it received.

When asked by Bustle how she felt about the movie's reviews, she responded:

"Unfortunately, I’m not surprised that this has gone down the way it has."

Johnson continued:

"It’s so hard to get movies made, and in these big movies that get made — and it’s even starting to happen with the little ones, which is what’s really freaking me out — decisions are being made by committees, and art does not do well when it’s made by committee. Films are made by a filmmaker and a team of artists around them.

"You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms. My feeling has been for a long time that audiences are extremely smart, and executives have started to believe that they’re not. Audiences will always be able to sniff out bullsh*t. Even if films start to be made with AI, humans aren’t going to f*cking want to see those.

"But it was definitely an experience for me to make that movie. I had never done anything like it before. I probably will never do anything like it again because I don’t make sense in that world. And I know that now. But sometimes in this industry, you sign on to something, and it’s one thing and then as you’re making it, it becomes a completely different thing, and you’re like, Wait, what? But it was a real learning experience, and of course it’s not nice to be a part of something that’s ripped to shreds, but I can’t say that I don’t understand."