Dakota Johnson ‘not surprised’ her Marvel movie Madame Web flopped

Dakota Johnson has brutally snubbed her own movie Madame Web after it flopped at the box office, admitting she knew it would happen.

Dakota Johnson is ‘not surprised’ Madame Web is bombing.

Madame Web star Dakota Johnson has one thing to say to critics: she’s “not surprised”.

After her Marvel feature failed to break even at the box office and earned just a 12 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes, the superhero film has become a grim reminder of the genre’s downfall.

But in a recent interview with Bustle, the US actress candidly spoke about her experience making the film and pointedly called out Sony’s method of making “art based on numbers and algorithms,” a trend she says she’s seeing more often in the industry.

“Unfortunately, I’m not surprised that this has gone down the way it has,” she admitted.

“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,” she told the outlet.

“Films are made by a filmmaker and a team of artists around them. You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms.”

Dakota Johnson plays Cassandra Webb in Columbia Pictures’ Madame Web.

She continued, “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 bull s**t. Even if films start to be made with AI, humans aren’t going to f**king want to see those.”

The feature grossed $91 million in the global box office after three weekends in cinemas, earning well below The Marvels, Marvel’s lowest-earning film yet. That is also not enough to make up Madame Web’s budget, which The Hollywood Reporter claims is in “the low $100 million range”.

Johnson added that making the film was “a real learning experience,” but not one that she would ever do again.

Sydney Sweeney co-stars in the film alongside Johnson. Picture: Frederic J. Brown/AFP

“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,” she said.

“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.”

Madame Web has been panned by critics.

In Madame Web, Johnson plays Cassandra Webb, a clairvoyant paramedic who must save three young women who are being hunted by a murderous enemy.

The film was co-written by the same writers of Morbius, a similarly meme-ified Sony Marvel film.

Madame Web is playing in cinemas.

This story originally appeared on Decider and was reproduced with permission

Originally published as Dakota Johnson ‘not surprised’ her Marvel movie Madame Web flopped