Madame Web: Sony's Spider-Man Spinoff Adds The Walking Dead DP

By Cameron Bonomolo

The Walking Dead's director of photography is the latest talent to get tangled in the web of Sony's Spider-Man Universe. Duane Manwiller, who has served as The Walking Dead DP for five seasons of the AMC zombie drama since 2017, has joined Madame Web as the second unit director of photography, according to Manwiller's Instagram. Currently in pre-production for a July 2023 theatrical release, S.J. Clarkson (Netflix's Anatomy of a Scandal, Marvel's The Defenders) directs the Sony Pictures Marvel adaptation set in the shared universe of 2018's Venom and 2022's Morbius.

Manwiller's credits as second unit DP include John Wick: Chapter 2, Baby Driver, The Greatest Showman, Ocean's 8, and Dwayne Johnson's Skyscraper. Along with the 24-episode final season of The Walking Dead, Manwiller's cinematographer credits include the post-apocalyptic Netflix series Daybreak and the crime-thriller Midnight in the Switchgrass. 

Filming on Madame Web will begin July 11 in Boston, according to a report from Massachusetts' The Patriot Ledger, with production scheduled to shoot in Mexico and New York. 

The star-studded cast of the female-driven spinoff includes Dakota Johnson (Fifty Shades of Grey) as either Cassandra Webb or Julia Carpenter, both blind, spider-themed clairvoyants connected to the Great Web in the Marvel comic books. Sony's Madame Web also stars Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria), Celeste O'Connor (Ghostbusters: Afterlife), Isabela Merced (Transformers: The Last Knight), Tahar Rahim (A Prophet), and Emma Roberts (American Horror Story) in undisclosed roles. 

Plot details remain under wraps. In the comics, the Julia Carpenter Madame Web is part of the Order of the Web, a team of spider-heroes that has included the Jessica Drew Spider-Woman, the Anya Corazon Spider-Girl, Spider-Gwen, and Cindy Moon, a.k.a. Silk. 

Sony Pictures has scheduled Madame Web to open in theaters on July 7, 2023. 

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