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 percent 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 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.”
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 bullshit. Even if films start to be made with AI, humans aren’t going to fucking want to see those.”
The feature grossed $91 million in the global box office after three weekends in theaters, 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.
“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 confessed.
“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?” Johnson added. “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.”
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 now playing in theaters.
