Sony have released the first trailer for the Madame Web movie, starring Dakota Johnson as a younger version of Cassandra Webb, the elderly clairvoyant ally of Spider-Man from the comics and the 1990s animated series.
Reimagining the character as a New York paramedic, the film follows Webb as she discovers her ability to see the future, and learns three girls are being hunted by Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), Peter Parker’s ruthless predecessor in the comics, who is portrayed here as being her late mother’s scientific colleague. The three girls in question are Julia Carpenter (Sydney Sweeney), Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), and Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor), who, as Ezekiel reveals, are destined to become Spider-Woman, Araña, and Spider-Girl.
According to the official synopsis, the film is set “in another universe,” presumably meaning Sony’s previous Spider-Man films. The trailer also reveals Adam Scott as Cassandra’s FDNY colleague, with the rest of the confirmed cast — Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, and Zosia Mamet — a no-show here. Sony have also released a brief behind-the-scenes featurette with Johnson and director/co-writer S.J. Clarkson (Anatomy of a Scandal, The Defenders), who is making her big screen debut with this, after the Star Trek sequel she was attached to stalled in 2019.
Madame Web will be released in theaters on February 14, 2024, with Sony’s next two Spider-Man Universe movies, Kraven the Hunter and Venom 3, following respectively on August 30, and November 8, 2024. Together, they will comprise most of the Marvel movies releasing next year, after Beyond the Spider-Verse was delayed indefinitely, and Deadpool 3 (out July 26) became Marvel Studios’ sole 2024 film in the wake of the SAG-AFTRA strike.
The trailer also marks the second comics-inspired movie Sony released a preview for this week, following the first for The Garfield Movie, starring Chris Pratt as Jim Davis’s ginger cat, Samuel L. Jackson as his father Vic, and Harvey Guillén as Odie.
That movie, directed by Mark Dindal (Cats Don’t Dance, The Emperor’s New Groove, and Chicken Little), will be released in theaters May 24, 2024.
