Madame Web Star Thinks Entertainment Industry Is “F-ing Bleak”

Madame Web star Dakota Johnson thinks the Hollywood landscape is “F***ing Bleak” right now, following the Actors’ and Writers’ Strikes of 2023.

While doing the press tour for Madame Web, Johnson addressed what the business is offering – or rather, not offering – right now. According to Johnson, the issue that the people with the money to finance TV and movie projects aren’t confident in the state of the market or potential return on investment: 

“People are just so afraid, and I’m like, ‘Why? What’s going to happen if you do something brave?’ It just feels like nobody knows what to do and everyone’s afraid,” Johnson told Variety. “That’s what it feels like. Everyone who makes decisions is afraid. They want to do the safe thing and the safe thing is really boring…  it’s really f***ing bleak in this industry. It is majorly disheartening.”

Johnson went into deeper specifics about how the streaming wars have created a major impasse between creatives and executives that is seriously gumming up the works: 

“The people who run streaming platforms don’t trust creative people or artists to know what’s going to work, and that is just going to make us implode,” Johnson explained. “It’s really heartbreaking. It’s just f***ing so hard. It’s so hard to get anything made. All of the stuff I’m interested in making is really different, and it’s unique and it’s very forward in whatever it is.”

Johnson has shown in recent years that she has a unique perspective on the industry. She became a breakout star thanks to the years she starred in the Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy (2015-2018). After that major studio franchise tentpole, however, Johnson has made a clear and distinct pivot into roles and projects that are nowhere near being studio tentpoles. That includes the Suspiria remake, acclaimed films like The Peanut Butter Falcon, the Oscar-nominated film The Lost Daughter or the Sean Penn film Daddio just last year. Even when she’s done genre pictures, it’s been projects as odd as Bad Times at the El Royale. 

Madame Web is the biggest studio project Dakota Johnson has taken on in nearly a decade – and it seems like she didn’t even think it was that sort of project: 

“When the script came along, I loved the idea of a superhero being a young woman whose mind was extremely powerful. I liked the dynamic between her and these three young women; how they genuinely protect and support and care for each other. And so, it just seemed different to me and it was way more grounded and real and gritty. I just thought it was an interesting way to experience that world.”

However, the experience of making and marketing Madame Web is likely going to turn Dakota Johnson away from major franchises for the foreseeable future: 

“I’ve never really done a movie where you are on a blue screen, and there’s fake explosions going off, and someone’s going, ‘Explosion!’ and you act like there’s an explosion,” Johnson exclaimed. “That to me was absolutely psychotic. I was like, ‘I don’t know if this is going to be good at all! I hope that I did an okay job!’”

Madame Web will be in theaters on February 14th.