Madame Web Box Office Debut May Set An Unwanted Record For Sony's Spider-Man Universe Movies

26.01.2024 - 20:25 / gamerant.com / Tom Holland / Andrew Garfield / Dakota Johnson / Aayush Sharma / Sony

Madame Web box office predictions suggest the Dakota Johnson film might set a new negative record for Sony's Spider-Man Universe movies, making fans worried about the franchise’s future.

Madame Web ranks high among the most-anticipated superhero projects, marking Sony's continued effort to expand its Spider-Man Universe. Sony hopes Madame Web will have a bumper opening at the box office. However, early projections suggest that the film might face a tough start, possibly having the lowest opening weekend box office among all Spider-Man movies.

According to a report in Deadline, Madame Web is on track to make over $25 million in the first six days of its release. The report also indicates that Madame Web could debut in the 2nd position with those figures, just behind Paramount's musical biopic Bob Marley: One Love. If the projections are correct, Madame Web's opening weekend box office total could make it Sony's first-ever Spider-Man Universe project not to grab the number one position in its opening weekend. Since 2002,Spider-Man movies have become huge successes at the box office and never lost the top spot. With these projected figures, Madame Web might also end up having the lowest-grossing opening weekend for any live-action Spider-Man movie, leaving Morbius behind, which earned $39 million during its opening weekend.

The Madame Web box office report comes a few days after another report claimed that the movie could end its theatrical run somewhere between $56-101 million. The production giant might find the movie's expected performance disappointing, especially considering the reported $80 million budget. The problem is that not many people know or get excited about these lesser-known characters, making it hard for audiences to want to spend money on their standalone movies. But Sony had a chance to make fans excited about the movie if they didn't change their initial plans of re-introducing a familiar version of Spider-Man. Sony reportedly planned for Andrew Garfield to play Spider-Man in the Madame Web movie, but they later chose Tom Holland. This created a timeline mistake, as Madame Web was supposed to be set in the '90s, leading to reshoots to remove Spider-Man references and the specific year.

Including Garfield or Tobey Maguire would have made things better for Madame Web. It would also have impacted the film’s box-office run, especially the opening weekend. However, one positive thing about Madame Web is that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse earned over $35 million in the opening weekend. But the film became a huge success and won several awards, prompting the viewers to be more excited about the sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which had a bombastic domestic opening of $120