The Spider-Man spinoff Madame Web got off to a rough start with critics earlier this week, as review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes calculated that initial critical reactions were only few and far between, putting its positive score in the low-20% range. Things have only gotten worse for the movie, as the site has now calculated that, with over 150 reviews, only 13% of them are positive, making it the worst-reviewed film of Sony’s franchise of Spider-Man spinoffs. Given that its initial box-office performance also isn’t particularly strong, this might be the only film featuring these characters we could ever end up getting.
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After years of fans hoping to see Spider-Man brought into the Marvel Cinematic Universe properly, Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures struck a deal that allowed Peter Parker to appear in the MCU, though Sony retained the rights to a majority of supporting characters closely associated with the Wall-Crawler. Tom Hardy debuted as Eddie Brock in Venom, a fan-favorite antagonist, a film which also struck out with critics and sits at only 30% positive reactions. The sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, seemingly identified what it was about the debut movie that resonated with audiences and leaned further into those elements, resulting in the sequel nearly doubling its score and sitting at 57% positive reactions.
In 2022, the Jared Leto-starring Morbius arrived and was yet another setback to Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, securing only 15% positive reviews. For the last few days, audiences reacted to the poor Madame Web reviews with the silver lining that it at least performed slightly better than Morbius, though that outlook must now be abandoned.
When looking at the negative critical reactions, the explanation for its poor score covers a wide range of setbacks and there isn’t one prevailing issue that viewers are taking issue with. One popular topic is that, while comic book movies have reached new critical and financial heights in recent years, the film feels much more similar to comic book movies from the late ’90s and early ’00s that focused more on name-brand recognition than on having a story worth telling. In this sense, Madame Web still sits above 1997’s Batman & Robin and above 2005’s Elektra, both of which have 11% positive reviews. It also sits above 2015’s Fantastic Four, a movie that director Josh Trank distanced himself from prior to opening, which only scored 9% positive reviews.
With Morbius having 100 more reviews than Madame Web, it’s possible that the data could end up skewing back toward Madame Web‘s favor, but the statistics will likely keep it a close race for a title neither film wants to earn.
Madame Web is in theaters now.
What did you think of the movie? Let us know in the comments!
