Dakota Johnson is having a banner year.
After starring in Maggie Gyllenhaal's awards contender The Lost Daughter, she appeared in two Sundance films in January and is set to lead
Netflix's adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion sometime in 2022.Now, the latest addition to her list of projects? A possible Spider-Man spinoff: Johnson is reportedly in talks to star as the titular role in Sony's Madame Web, according to The Hollywood Reporter. (Insiders told Variety the deal is not yet final.)
The character was first introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man comics in the ‘80s and is “a clairvoyant mutant who specializes in predicting the future of Spider-themed superheroes, having mentored not only Peter Parker’s alter ego, but also multiple generations of heroes calling themselves Spider-Woman,” per THR. Also known as Cassandra Webb, she's portrayed on the page as a blind and paralyzed elderly woman aided by a web-like life support machine. We'll see if or how the screen adaptation will reinterpret the character.
The film is set to be helmed by S.J. Clarkson, who has directed Marvel TV projects like The Defenders and Jessica Jones, and written by Morbius screenwriters Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless.
Speculation about a Madame Web film began in 2020 when Clarkson's directing gig was announced. This would be Sony's first Marvel superhero movie with a female lead, as Variety pointed out. The studio's other Marvel titles include Venom, starring Tom Hardy; Morbius, starring Jared Leto; and of course three Spider-Men: Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland.