Sony Pictures CEO Says Madame Web “Wasn’t a bad film”, Blames Media For Crucifying It

SUMMARY

• Sony CEO Tony Vinciquerra has defended Dakota Johnson's Madame Web, stating that critics "crucified" the film, leading to its underperformance at the box office.
• Vinciquerra claimed that the film did well on Netflix, implying that its poor theatrical performance was due to negative reviews rather than the film's quality.
• Marvel fans have disputed Vinciquerra's claims, pointing out the film's numerous flaws, including a lack of cohesion, boring dialogue, and perplexing plotlines.

Sony had been desperately trying for years to kick off its superhero franchise based on the characters in Spider-Man’s universe. But as seen so far, these movies – starting from Dakota Johnson’s Madame Web to the recently released Kraven The Hunter – have all been nothing short of a huge disappointment, both critically and commercially.

Madame Web. | Credits: Sony Pictures Releasing.

While Kraven has failed miserably, one of the franchise’s biggest failures was the Johnson-starrer. The said film not only lacked cohesion and plot, but was also deemed an unworthy comic book entry overall. However, recently Sony’s current CEO came to the defense of the film, claiming it was just the media that crucified the film.

Sony CEO believes Dakota Johnson’s Madame Web was not a bad entry

Anyone who has seen the Dakota Johnson-starrer Madame Web will tell you that the film is as bad as it can get. From a plot that lacked cohesion and flair to being miserably bland, critics basically called the film one of the worst comic book movies of all time.

Currently, the film has an 11% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and made over $100 million worldwide against a budget of $80 million (via The Numbers).

Madame Web. | Credits: Sony Pictures Releasing.

Thus, while many would label it as a certified hit that did not deserve to be made and released, Sony’s current CEO Tony Vinciquerra has another opinion. In a recent interview with the LA Times, when talking about Kraven the Hunter and Madame Web, he stated,

Blaming the critics for failing the film, he gave the example of how Venom was a massive hit despite being ranked fairly low in the critic score. While he hinted that there won’t be any more of those films until the strategy is rethought, Marvel fans believe his statement holds no fact and was based on ill-founded assumptions.

What do Marvel fans think about Sony CEO’s Madame Web comment?

Madame Web. | Credits: Sony Pictures Releasing.

When Madame Web was to be released and its advertising campaign was going on, fans had some hope that the film would be at least watchable since the three spider-woman (played by Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O’Connor) were to be in the film.

However, the film instead turned out to be the origin story for Madame Web and the three Spider-Women were only present in a dream sequence. Moreover, the film had several other issues, from boring dialogues to perplexing plotlines, nothing really made sense to the fans.

Hence, when Sony’s CEO Tony Vinciquerra stated that the film was destroyed by critics and was rather good, here is what Marvel fans had to say.

If this dude owned a failing restaurant, he'd be the owner who was flabbergasted that Gordon Ramsey hated the food.

Maybe the right question is…should this guy really be a studio head? Dude has the cinematic taste and instincts of an 11yr old child.

'it did great on netflix' people were watching it to see how shit it was
It had a out of sync line that was added in post the movie was hilariously awful that people needed to see how bad it was

This is very worrying if this is the attitude at the top of Sony. Also plenty of films have had bad reviews but still gone on to achieve success such as Venom.

Or maybe the movie was just garbage.

With all of this said, it’s unarguable that not only do Marvel fans dislike Sony’s attempt to create a superhero franchise from the Spider-Man universe without the web-slinger, but they also dislike the way Sony treated its superhero franchise.

Instead of giving fans what they need and making up a film that served the legacy of these comic book characters, the billion-dollar studio’s films like Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter have been nothing but sub-par, lacking the vision and direction required for a comic book film.

Madame Web can currently be streamed on Netflix.

Written by Mahin Sultan

Articles Published: 1790