Film / Madame Web (2024)

"When you take on the responsibility, great power will come."

— Santiago

Madame Web is a 2024 superhero film based on the comic book character of the same name by Marvel Comics and is the fourth installment of Sony's Spider-Man Universe. It stars Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O'Connor, Isabela Merced, Emma Roberts, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, and Adam Scott. S. J. Clarkson directs from a screenplay by herself and Claire Parker.

Working as a paramedic, during one accident Cassandra Webb drowns and when revived gains the astonishing power to see the future. This ability draws her to protect three young women named Julia Cornwall, Mattie Franklin and Anya Corazon from the mysterious Ezekiel Sims, who has a dark connection to Cassandra's past and the death of her mother. Cassandra must protect these girls from Ezekiel, who can see their destinies to become great heroes and seeks to kill them to change the future.

After several delays, it was released on February 14, 2024.

Previews: Trailer 1

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Madame Web includes examples of the following:

• 11th-Hour Superpower: When Cassandra accepts her responsibility to protect the girls and their futures, she unlocks the power to be in multiple places at once and is able to astral project towards them while they're in peril to save them. A moment later, though, Ezekiel punches her to knock her out of it and it never comes up again.
• 20 Minutes into the Past: The main story is set in 2003, while the movie released in 2024.
• The '70s: The film starts in 1973 before skipping to 2003.
• Abled in the Adaptation: In this version, Cassandra is neither blind or paralyzed, being a young and physically fit paramedic. The final confrontation with Ezekiel leaves her in a state much closer to her comics equivalent, left both blind and in a wheelchair.
• Adaptational Badass: Unlike in the comics where she was an old, paralyzed and blind psychic, Cassandra is a paramedic. Once her precognitive powers kick in, she's able to keep up with the much stronger and faster Ezekiel via her anticipating all his moves.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Due to their Age Lift, instead of having gray hair both Cassandra and Ezekiel have black hair, though Ezekiel's vision of his death at the hands of the Spider-Women has him with the comics-correct gray colouring.
• Adaptation Name Change:
  • Subverted, as while her name is still Cassandra, she seems to have the nickname Cassie from Ben and her other co-workers, whereas in the comics she had no such nickname. Played straight in regards to her last name, as in the comics "Webb" was her married name while here "Webb" is her actual, maiden last name.
  • Played With in regards to Julia. A teenager here, she retains the comics version's birth surname of Cornwall, rather than the better-known Carpenter, the married name that she kept even after her divorce.
• Adaptation Origin Connection:
  • Ezekiel knew Cassandra's mother and was responsible for her death, while in the comics the two haven't even met.
  • Cassie's partner in her paramedic career is none other than Ben Parker, another character she's never interacted with in the comics.
  • While familiar with Julia, Mattie and Anya, Cassandra never had a role in their origins or lives before getting their powers while here she needs to protect them from Ezekiel, who has never even met the girls.
• Adaptation Species Change: While she's a mutant in the comics, in this version Cassandra is a normal human that gains her psychic powers after a near death experience causes the Spider Tribe's abilities to manifest.
• Adaptational Villainy: The comics version of Ezekiel Sims was marked out by his selfishness in using his powers to benefit himself, and his terror of dying, but he was otherwise an Anti-Villain at worst who still wanted to help people and tried to atone for his past misdeeds. Here he's still driven by selfishness and fear of death, but goes far further; he murders Cassie's mother to gain the mysterious spider that gives him his powers, spends the movie tracking down and trying to kill three innocent teenage girls and killing numerous cops and civilians along the way - all to avoid going back to "nothing" as he puts it.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Spider-Women Julia Carpenter, Mattie Franklin and Anya Corazon go from badass arachnid action girls to three powerless damsels Cassandra needs to protect and babysit from Ezekiel. It is stated and briefly shown in flash forwards (where they take out the Ezekiel) that they will be strong Spider-Women in the future but in the movie itself, we still see none of their competency that will apparently make them such great superheroes.
  • Mary Parker, Spidey’s mother when she was alive in the comics was a badass S.H.I.E.L.D. secret agent Nick Fury himself held in high regard. In this film she’s just a clueless civilian who don’t have any real bearing on the plot beyond being pregnant with Peter.
• Age Lift:
  • Cassandra and Ezekiel are far younger than in the comics, with their actors being in their early thirties and forties respectively. In the comics Cassandra was an old woman while Ezekiel was in his fifties or sixties. Justified as the story is set before Peter Parker is born and Peter doesn't meet either of them until he's an adult. On top of this, Ezekiel is implied to be Older Than They Look during the bulk of the film, as the timeline indicates he should be in his fifties or sixties in 2003, since he is shown to be an adult in 1973.
  • Also applies to Julia, Mattie and Anya after Peter Parker is born, who is typically around the same age as Julia and at least a decade older than Mattie and Anya, while here they are all teenagers when Peter is born.
• Ambiguous Situation: Given how Cassie's powers are established to work at that point, it's not clear whether her vision of meeting Ezekiel in the diner is her vision of what would have happened had she tried to leave the girls as she'd intended, or whether Ezekiel is somehow communing with her psychically through their shared Spider-powers.
• Anger Born of Worry: Cassie's blowing up at the girls in the taxi after escaping from the diner is clearly driven by this, even having a moment of visible regret immediately afterwards where she visibly regrets her words.
• Artistic License – Medicine: Constance is told that her unborn baby has myasthenia gravis. There is no way to diagnose it before birth now, let alone in 1973 when the scene in question is set. Myasthenia gravis is not a genetic condition but an autoimmune disorder.
• Bait-and-Switch: When Cassie's neuromuscular disorder is mentioned, comics fans will expect this to be what causes her to be blind and paralyzed. In the movie, the disorder is cured before her birth, and her injuries come randomly from getting hit in the face with a firework and having a Pepsi sign fall on her.
• Brick Joke: When Anya realises she lives in the same building as Cassie, she notes with annoyance that Cassie just leaves her junk mail in the hall for others to get rid of. At the end when the trio visits Cassie in her new apartment, Anya's the one bringing her junk mail up...again.
• Car Fu: Twice over, Cassie rams Ezekiel with a car to rescue the girls from him - once in the diner and once on the way to the hospital so Mary can give birth to Peter.
• Chekhov's Skill: Played straight and subverted:
  • Played straight with Cassie training the girls on how to do CPR, which they use to save her life at the end of the movie.
  • Subverted with Julia's claim that she knows how to fight because she took Tae Kwon Do lessons. She never uses those skills in the film.
• Combat Clairvoyance: Cassie and the as-yet unpowered Spider-Women can't match Ezekiel's enhanced strength and agility, making any direct confrontation a death sentence. However, her ability to see into the future by a few minutes allows her to predict his actions in ways that allow her to guide him into the path of electric shocks, explosions and eventually the falling sign that kills him.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Cassandra is never once referred to by the title of Madame Web, even after the climax leaves her in a physically crippled but psychically powerful state akin to her comics counterpart.
• Composite Character: The Cassandra Webb of this film retains the name and some of the backstory of her comics counterpart. Her look, though, is based on the Julia Carpenter version of Madame Web.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: In contrast to Eddie Brock and Michael Morbius from the previous films who were anti-heroes with a Horror Hunger, Cassandra is a more traditionally heroic (if notably antisocial at first) character who is gifted powers she didn’t expect and chooses to use them to protect the innocent.
• Cool Uncle: Ben Parker is clearly set up to become a fun-loving uncle to his newborn infant. Of course, anyone who knows anything about Spider-Man knows how that's going to turn out.
• Dark Is Evil: Ezekiel's spider-suit resembles a black Spider-Man suit, and he's the villain.
• Dark Is Not Evil: On the other hand, Julia is glimpsed in Ezekiel's and Madame Web's visions of her future in her traditional black Spider-Woman suit too, and she's one of the heroines. Her costume is, however, marked by the white boots and spider-emblem of her comics counterpart.
• Deadpan Snarker: Cassie and Mattie slip into this frequently as the gravity and weirdness of their stuation hits them, but Anya and Ben also have their moments.
• Decomposite Character:
  • Julia Carpenter is divided into two characters: the teenage Julia who will become one of the Spider-Women, and Cassandra Webb herself who not only looks more like Julia as Madame Web instead of her comic counterpart, but also inherits part of Julia's comics backstory as the daughter of researchers who've worked in the Amazon.
  • Powers-wise, both Cassie and Ezekiel take on different aspects of Spider-Man's power set. He gets the enhanced strength, agility and wall-crawling ability, while her precognitive ability is described by her mother's notes on the Spider Tribe as a kind of sixth sense - in other words, a Spider-sense.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Cassie is aloof and socially uncomfortable in general and especially around children, but she learns to love and appreciate the teenage girls in her charge.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Amaria, Ezekiel's tech expert, seems distinctly uncomfortable when she realizes her boss's targets are teenage girls rather than full-fledged Spider-Women. Downplayed in that she still helps him target them after he makes clear he'll kill her if he can't get them.
• Evil Counterpart: Ezekiel Sims' suit design and abilities (jumping onto the ceiling) are meant to invoke a villainous version of the Spider-Man we know and love. That said, he is in a universe that has no Spider-Man, making it more of a Mythology Gag in practice. Or at least, his world doesn't have a Spider-Man yet.
• Exactly Exty Years Ago: The events of the prologue take place in 1973, exactly 30 years before the main story in 2003.
• Exty Years from Publication: Originally intended to be the case, as the film is set in 1973 and 2003 and was originally intended to be released in 2023, but production delays resulted in the film coming out in 2024.
• Foreshadowing: It's not obvious, but Cassie's first vision when she drowns shows a lot of what happens in the climax, including where it happens, her triple astral form and how Ezekiel dies.
• Foster Kid: Cassie was one of these after her mother's death, and it's all but said her miserable experience contributed massively to her spiky and antisocial personality in the present. When she tries to tell a scared Anya that foster care isn't that bad, Mattie calls her out on that being bullshit, something Cassie doesn't even try to deny.
  Cassie: I was the perfect foster kid. Peed outside and everything.
• Future Badass: The driving conflict is that Ezekiel knows that Julia, Mattie and Anya are destined to become spider-themed superheroes in the future and kill him, with all three briefly being seen in their costumes. At current time however they are all young women with no powers and need Cassandra to protect them.
• Iconic Attribute Adoption Moment: Cassie becomes blind and paralytic after her battle with Ezekiel. Her final scene in the movie has her on a wheelchair and wearing sunglasses, indicating that she's on her way to become like the Madame Web of the comics.
• The Illegal: Anya's father was deported six months before the events of the film, leaving her to fend for herself. Anya herself doesn’t appear to be certain about her own citizenship status, as she doesn’t know if a brush with the cops will result in her getting deported or put into the foster system.
• It's All About Me: In the name of preventing a vision of his own death, Ezekiel attacks and potentially kills various cops and random civilians who get in his way to eliminate the girls who he has envisioned will cause his future death. Santiago even states he sought the Amazonian spiders for his own selfish purposes.
• Jerkass Realization: Cassie grew up blaming her mother's focus on her work as the reason her mother died in childbirth; it takes a particular vision for Cassie to learn that her mother only went on that expedition to find a cure for the genetic disorder that Cassie had been diagnosed with.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: After learning about Ezekiel from her mother's notes, Cassie wonders if she can climb walls like him. She tries and fails miserably, and then tells the stray cat she occasionally feeds that they shouldn't share it with anyone.
• Literal Metaphor: Having foreseen O'Neil's death but not yet knowing she could have saved him, Cassie has literal blood on her hands after her failed attempt to resuscitate him (something she also foresaw in her vision).
• Magical Native American: The spider of the Peruvian Amazon whose bite grants mystic powers was common knowledge to a supposedly mythical indigenous tribe of the area known as the "spider-people" who punish evil-doers and those who attempt to "steal" the spider (for their own good, as those who do become "cursed").
• Mythology Gag:
  • During her baby shower, Mary complains that she can't keep track of where in the planet her husband Richard is off to at that particular time. No surprise, given his line of work.
  • After they initially escape from Ezekiel, Mattie suggests calling her uncle Jonah. Of course, any Spider-fan knows who she's talking about.
  • When Mary's baby is born, Anya snarks that Ben will have all the fun of being an uncle without any of the tricky parenting parts. As this is, of course, Peter Parker, Cassie knowingly tells her that's what she thinks.
  • Ezekiel goes barefoot a lot of the time, including his initial attack on the train and when he and Amaria are trying to locate Cassie's group in his apartment. In the comics, he had no spider-suit like Peter, so his wallcrawling ability required him to go shoeless to properly stick to things with all four limbs.
  • When asked to guess the name of Mary's baby, Cassie incorrectly guesses Ben. This is usually depicted as Peter's middle name; additionally one of Peter's clones adopts the name Ben Reilly.
  • Ezekiel's dark spider-suit with red tinges, poison abilities (albeit delivered through touch rather than fangs) and lack of spider-sense bring to mind Miguel O'Hara aka Spider-Man 2099.
  • A couple of times in the movie, Mattie complains about being hungry and utters the line "You wouldn't like me when I'm hangry!"
  • The paper the trucker finds out about the girls' supposed abduction from at the diner is, naturally, The Daily Bugle.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • A minor example. In the movie's official trailer, Cassandra tells Julia, Mattie and Anya that Ezekiel Sims has some kind of connection to her late mother, and she tries to sum most of it up in a single sentence ("He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died"). In the film itself however, Cassandra never actually says that line.
  • The shots of the four heroines in costume seen in the trailers and posters are just brief future visions meant as a Sequel Hook; none of them actually get costumes or become Spider-Women in the story proper.
• News Travels Fast: Photographs of the girls are seen on the front page of a newspaper in rural New Jersey within what seems like only a few hours after Cass "kidnapped" them in New York.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Understandably not having a clue what's going on when Cassie gets her and the others the hell off the train before Ezekiel arrives, Julia calls out to nearby police officers that she's being kidnapped. Sure enough, with Ezekiel killing all the police officers and disappearing from the scene, Cassie's furious when a news bulletin identifes her as the girls' kidnapper - something she gives a bewildered Julia a tongue-lashing for.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The only thing Sims achieved with his single-minded quest to avoid being killed in the future by the Spider-Women was to shorten his own life by a decade or two because it caused Cassie to become involved and she ended up killing him considerably ahead of schedule.
• One Degree of Separation: After their first encounter with Ezekiel, Julia, Mattie, and Anya all realize that they all recognize Cassie: Julia knows her as the paramedic from the hospital who saved her stepmother, Mattie was almost run over by her ambulance while on a skateboard, and Anya lives in the same apartment building as her. When they say how weird it is how they're connected, Cassie states it's the least weird thing to happen to her that day.
• Parental Abandonment:
  • Not traditionally, but Cassie's anger at her mother for prioritizing her work over her unborn child, getting herself killed and condemning her to a life in foster care is one of the reasons she has so many issues relating to taking care of the girls. It takes a spirit quest to Peru to show her her mom was working so hard to find a cure for Cassie's genetic disorder - one which the spider venom she sought did eliminate. Once she gets this out her system, she becomes a much more caring person.
  • Julia, Mattie and Anya all experience parental abandonment. Julia was sent to live with her dad and stepmother due to her mother being in a psych ward, with her saying that she thinks they don’t want her there. Mattie’s wealthy parents are often away and Mattie is left on her own. Anya’s mom died when she was 5 while her dad was deported 6 months ago and she has lived in the apartment alone since.
• Parental Substitute:
  • Much as she initially doesn't want to be, Cassie eventually grows into this towards Julia, Mattie and Anya by the end of the movie, as all three have awful home lives with no-one to fill this role. Julia in particular seems desperate for Cassie's approval almost from the moment she realises Cassie's trying to save their lives.
  • After Mary gives birth to Peter, Mattie says that Ben can have fun with his nephew and never be concerned about the responsibility of looking after him, only for Cassie to disagree. This hints that much like with the comics, Mary and Richard are Doomed by Canon and Peter will end up in Ben's care.
• Present-Day Past:
  • Despite being set in 2003, a subway passenger is seen playing with a PlayStation Portable, a year before the handheld's debut in Japan, and two years before it would arrive in the United States.
  • Part of the film's aggressive Pepsi-Cola Product Placement are prominent bottles of Pepsi that use the 2023 labelling rather than the one from 2003.
  • When Ezekiel is seen outside of the Grand Central Station, the One Vanderbilt building could be clearly seen in the background. Said building would not be constructed until 2016 and finished in 2020, seventeen years after the film's setting of 2003.
  • Downplayed with the use of Britney Spears's "Toxic" in the diner scene — whilst it did not have an official release until 2004, it was being played on radio stations and suchlike in 2003.
• Product Placement: Throughout the movie there is advertising for Pepsi and associated drinks (such as Mountain Dew, which is owned by PepsiCo). This culminates in a climax which occurs around the giant Pepsi-Cola sign in Queens, and the Big Bad is crushed to death by a falling neon 'P' from the sign. Then, all the protagonists drink some bottles of ice-cold Pepsi at the end (the bottles use the logo from 2023 rather than 2003).
• Prophecy Twist: Ezekiel's visions of his own death turn out to be metaphorical in nature. The future Spider-Women are the catalysts of his demise, not the agents - that honor goes to Madame Webb.
• Race Lift: Mattie is played by black actress Celeste O'Connor while Ezekiel is played by Tahar Rahim, an actor of Algerian descent. Both are white in the comics.
• Red Is Heroic: Cassandra wears a red leather trenchcoat for most of the film.
• Refusal of the Call: Once Cassandra's initial heroic instinct in saving the girls fades and she realises there's an inhumanly strong and fast wall-crawling killer after them, she's all too ready to dump Julia, Maddie and Anya on the police - and an Imagine Spot has her trying to do exactly that. However, a very specific set of visions clue her in on Ezekiel's motivations and that he'll never stop hunting them, leading her to get her head back in the game
• Reset Button:
  • How Cassie initially understands her visions to work. She'll go through a particular event or moment, then after a certain time she'll be back at the start of said moment. Gradually she figures out that she can use this to change things.
  • At one point Cassandra gets stabbed by Ezekiel when trying to save the girls, with all of them being killed - and then she snaps back to the present, her precognition having kicked in again. Vowing to "try that again", this time she opts for a spot of Car Fu rather than fight Ezekiel directly, flattening Ezekiel with a taxi before the group escapes.
• Right Makes Might: Sebastian inverts the old "with great power there must come great responsibility" line. He tells Cassie that taking up the responsibility of protecting the girls will grant her power.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Ezekiel is a supporting Spider-Man character in the comics and never met Madame Web, Julia Carpenter, Anya Corazon or Mattie Franklin prior to the character's demise.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Ezekiel ultimately meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it. Having seen visions of the three future Spider-Women knocking off a ledge to his death, he assumed killing them when they were younger and powerless would allow him to change his fate. But his constant attacks on the three future Spider-Women caused a series of events that result in Cassie developing her powers as Madame Webb along with a reason to fight him, with her being the one who kills him.
• Socially Awkward Hero: It's not quite No Social Skills, as Cassie at least has decent relationships with Ben and her other coworkers. Outside of that, she's deeply uncomfortable in social situations, tries to fob off a child thanking her for saving his mother on Ben (she even complains about the drawing he made her) and generally acts like an ass towards the girls as they initially get to know each other. By the end of the film she's grown out of it, viewing the girls as family more than anything else.
  Julia: You saved my stepmother, then were really awkward about it afterwards.
  Cassie: That...does sound like me.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: One of Cassie’s visions has Ezekiel showing up at the diner and killing the girls, with it ending with Ezekiel stabbing Cassie in the stomach... All set to “Toxic” by Britney Spears playing faintly in the background.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Ezekiel gets deliberately rammed head on by a speeding vehicle, twice (the second time by an ambulance flying out of a second-storey parking garage), and isn't even momentarily knocked out. But then, in the climax, he is instantly killed when the smaller 'P' from a neon Pepsi-Cola sign falls on him (and this is right after surviving a fall from the same height as the letter fell).
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Cassie does this several times throughout the film. After her experience in the healing pool of the Spider Tribe, her psychic abilities are noticeably more focused on her return to New York, keeping her and the girls ahead of Ezekiel so easily Mattie even comments on her showing off with it. Then again at the end, where she unlocks her astral form ability, allowing her to mentally affect the physical world with her mind.
  • Played with with the three future Spider-Women. While we don't see them develop their powers during the film, the ending has them heading rapidly towards this under Cassie's tutelage.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot: Anyone in the least bit familiar with the geography of the Peruvian Amazon will find Cassie's trip to Peru in the third act taking just one week to get there and back, more than a bit iffy:
  • If the connecting flights lined up perfectly, she would need a whole day either way just to get from New York City to Lima and from there to either Iquitos, Pucallpa, or Puerto Maldonado, the main transport hubs in the Peruvian Amazon.
  • Then the light aircraft seen in the movie would have to be chartered because the only people flying those on a schedule in that region in the early 2000s were oil companies going to and from oil fields and drug runners.
  • The next leg of the trip is shown to be on a bus. The only problem with this is that any place in the Peruvian Amazon remote enough to require a light aircraft to reach is not going to have any roads around, or bus service for that matter. Most transport of people and cargo in the Amazon region of Peru is done by river boat.
  • Finally, the last leg of the journey is shown to be made by trekking on foot in the jungle… with a backpack that is clearly not designed for camping, implying that the remote home of the Spider Tribe is just a few kilometers away from the last bus stop.
• Turn of the Millennium: The main story of the film takes place in 2003.
• The Unreveal: The name of Mary Parker's unborn son is built up quite a bit, but the reveal is drowned out by a popping balloon.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: By the end of the film, the fate of Amaria, Sims' tech support lackey is left completely up in the air, despite the fact that with his death she is left in complete control of access to the NSA's Sinister Surveillance and the superpower-granting spider in his apartment.
• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Inverted. Las Arañas tells Cassie “When you take on the responsibility, great power will come.” Sure enough, when she accepts responsibility for the three future Spider-Women in the film's climax, she unlocks the "Thread" power that allows her to be in three places at once, just like Las Arañas said she would.
• Workplace-Acquired Abilities: Cassie's remarkable ability to practically stunt drive an ambulance comes in very handy when she and the girls flee from Ezekiel again near the end of the movie.
• Would Hurt a Child: In Constance's case, Ezekiel has no qualms whatsoever about targeting a pregnant woman when she's late in her term—to the point that he's surprised to later find out the baby (Cassie) survived and then with Mary, one of Cassie's visions that manages to be prevented is him bombing Ben's car with everyone in it on the night of Peter's birth (and whether or not he knew about Mary, his willingness with Constance earlier does show that it wouldn't have bothered him).
• Writing Around Trademarks: Oddly enough, despite the main villain resembling an evil Spider-Man, he is never referred as that outright, instead being described as a "spider person". On top of that, Mary Parker gives birth to a baby boy whose name is never stated, to avoid any character outright uttering the name Peter Parker. And finally, the iconic With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility speech that's present throughout Spider-Man has its wording, and thus its meaning, switched around.

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