'Madame Web' Trailer

The animated ‘Spider-Verse’ movies have gone some way to balancing gender representation of arachnid power-based heroism in Sony’s ever-widening use of Marvel’s web-slinger(s), as we’ve already had the likes of Spider-Gwen and Spider-Woman.

With ‘Madame Web’, that’s set to take a big leap forward, as not only do we meet the title character, played by Dakota Johnson, but three other young women whose destines appear to be wrapped up in that web-slinging life.

The first trailer for the new live-action movie has now arrived, along with a brief featurette in which Johnson and director S.J. Clarkson explain the story to some degree.

What’s the story of ‘Madame Web’?

Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson) in Columbia Pictures’ 'Madame Web.'

Presented as an alt-universe tale and essentially serving as an origin story for the Cassandra Webb (Johnson) character drawn from Marvel comics, the suspense-driven thriller here sees Webb as a paramedic in Manhattan who may have clairvoyant abilities.

Forced to confront revelations about her past, she forges a relationship with three young women destined for powerful futures... if they can all survive a deadly present.

The Cassandra character has typically been depicted as a much older woman with similar abilities whose age and medical concerns see her confined to a tricked out wheelchair which keep her alive.

This story is set years before that time exploring how a near-death experience unlocks her abilities and sets her on a path to help the other women (played by Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor and Isabela Merced), who are all tied to a mysterious, dark version of Spidey (Tahar Rahim’s Ezekiel Sims), who is looking to stop them from embracing their destinies.

Who else is in ‘Madame Web’?

Adam Scott in “Severance,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

The cast for Madame Web also includes Adam Scott (playing a character named Ben Parker, which carries with it some doom-laden connections in the Spider-Man universe), Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, Zosia Mamet and Jill Hennessy.

Director Clarkson, meanwhile, is no stranger to the Marvel world, having tackled episodes of ‘Jessica Jones’ and ‘The Defenders’ in the Netflix era of Marvel TV.

What do the cast and crew have to say about the movie?

Dakota Johnson at the premiere of 'Fifty Shades of Grey.'

In a new featurette about the film, Johnson explains how she was a fan of Marvel before she got the role, and how this story explores Cassandra’s origin as powered character –– though the focus is more on psychological thriller storytelling than myth and legend here.

And Clarkson details how she was excited to explore Cassandra’s powers and how they impact her –– her visions are fragmented, for example, because she doesn’t always see the future clearly at this point (not helpful when you’re trying to stop a vigilante from killing people who have superheroic destinies!).

Neither the trailer nor the featurette digs into detail as to exactly who the other three women will become, but we do know Sweeney is playing Julia Carpenter, Cassandra’s protégé in the comics and a future Spider-Woman, O’Connor is Martha “Mattie” Franklin, who’ll be another take on Spider-Woman and Merced has the role of Anya Corazon, who ends up as Spider-Girl.

See the featurette below: