Fifty Shades of Grey and The Lost Daughter actress Dakota Johnson is in talks to star in Sony’s Spider-Man spinoff movie Madame Web.
Sources close to the film told Deadline Johnson has been tapped to play the titular character, who first appeared in an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man in 1980. British director S.J. Clarkson, who previously directed episodes of Netflix’s Marvel series Jessica Jones, is on board to helm the film, while Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless penned the script. The duo also wrote Sony’s Jared Leto-starring Morbius, another Spider-Man spinoff in Sony’s connected Marvel film universe.
The character of Madame Web, also known as Cassandra Webb, is typically depicted as an elderly woman with myasthenia gravis. Often accompanied by a life support system, the character has utilized her clairvoyant powers to held Spidey fight crime. A younger version of the character, Julia Carpenter, was the second Spider-Woman and later the second Madame Web. It remains to be seen how the character will be depicted here, but sources said the story is still in flux.
This will be Sony’s first woman-fronted film in its Spider-Man universe, which also includes the two Venom films and Morbius. Sony will release another villain-centric entry in the universe with Kraven the Hunter in 2023.
Johnson broke out into the mainstream with the Fifty Shades trilogy of films before transitioning into more independent material. Most recently she gained critical acclaim for her role in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut The Lost Daughter.
