With the box office success of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, the triumphant returns of Spideys past in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and the upcoming release of Morbius promising fans some more webhead-related stream crossing, things are looking up for the once ailing SPUMC — or Sony Pictures’ Universe of Marvel Characters, if you prefer. And the future for Sony’s own Spiderverse is looking brighter by the day.
Last month we learned that Dakota Johnson, fresh off the festival circuit with Netflix prestige drama The Lost Daughter, is in talks to star as the lead in Sony’s upcoming Madame Web, a film scripted by Lost In Space writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless with S.J. Clarkson aboard to direct. And now we’re getting news that Euphoria breakout star Sydney Sweeney is getting in on the action for what will be Sony’s first female-centred superhero offering.
Having lit up our screens in HBO’s high school-set smash hit while making memorable appearances in both erotic thriller The Voyeurs and Blumhouse horror Nocturne, Sweeney is rapidly becoming one of the most talked about names in the business, and the prospect of her teaming up with Johnson is a dizzying one to say the least.
As for her role in Madame Web, which already looks set to split from comic canon - Dakota Johnson doesn’t quite match the comics’ depiction of a silver-haired, mostly immobile psychic old lady in a web — nothing has been confirmed as of yet. But, while we’ve already seen Gwen Stacy in both The Amazing Spider-Man duology and Into The Spider-Verse, it wouldn’t be wild to wonder if Sweeney could be our third big screen Stacy (well, technically, the fourth - we remember you, Spider-Man 3__'s Bryce Dallas-Howard, we remember!). Live-action Spider-Gwen? Yes please! Whatever Sweeney’s mystery role ends up being, though, it seems SPUMC’s glory days are, er, coming at last.