Sony and Marvel cooperated to produce “Madame Web,” a feminist take on a superhero film. It came out on February 14, and, despite having Presidents’ Day weekend to theoretically bring more people into theaters for its first weekend, it was a massive flop from the start. In fact, it has been bringing in just a few million dollars a day for the days it has been out, putting it deeply in the red.
Such is what Deadline reported in its tally of box office hauls over Presidents’ Day weekend, noting that though it has done marginally better than expected, it is still deeply underwater with is massive costs and painfully low ticket sales.
On opening day, February 14, Madame Web grossed just $6.05 million. It then did even worse on the next day, bringing in just $2.15 million. Ticket sales then eventually rebounded somewhat, bringing in $4.6 million on Sunday the 18th before crashing back down to $2.65 million on Monday, Presidents’ Day. That gave it a total haul of $26 million in the domestic market over the six days it was out, which means that, under the typical deal studios strike with theaters, Marvel and Sony will collectively keep about $13 million.
That minuscule figure pales in comparison to the film’s costs. Its production costs along totalled about $80 million, and once promotion costs are factored in it could have cost in the range of $120 to $150 million. That means it is deeply, deeply underwater financially.
Yet worse for the movie is that it has gotten panned in reviews. On CinemaScore, the film received a brutally bad C+ from moviegoers, and Rotten Tomatoes gave it just a 13%. IMDB and Metacritic gave it somewhat better reviews than Rotten Tomatoes, giving it a 3.8/10 and 27%, respectively. But, still, those reviews are horrible, some of the worst for a Marvel movie, and thus it is unlikely the movie will rebound.
Further, Deadline notes that once the new Dune movie comes out, what residual steam “Madame Web” has will disappear. “That said, once Legendary/Warner Bros.’ Dune gang of Zendaya, Timothee Chalamet, Austin Butler and Florence Pugh arrive, especially abroad (where audiences could tolerate the Sony/Marvel title more), they’re pulling off all of Madame Web‘s legs,” Deadline claimed.
Comments on X were hardly complimentary of “Madame Web” as well, indicating that the reviews accurately showed public opinion on it. One poster, for example, joked about how ridiculous and uninteresting the storyline was, saying, “Madame Web is hilarious because it treats the birth of Peter Parker like its the birth of Jesus but the rest of the story is about Jesus’ uncle’s coworker’s very bad day. A Life of Brian without the jokes.”
In another hilarious tweet, one anonymous poster posted a picture of a car with a broken window and captioned it, “Stay safe out there everyone.. so i had 2 tickets for the Madame Web movie in my car and someone broke in and left 4 more.”
Another person said, “OMG… #MadameWeb was… Like… it was so bad that it was entertaining. It was iconic tbh. I don’t know how else to describe it. That last scene had my theatre cackling! I couldn’t breathe! Its really one of those “so bad its good” films… Whew…”
Featured image credit: By http://www.impawards.com/2024/madame_web_ver2.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75439292
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