Dakota Johnson seems to be doing the work of an angel by helping revive the rom-com genre, by teaming up with Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans for her film, Materialists. But while promoting her new movie, she also took a moment to reflect on a not-so-glamorous chapter, Madame Web, the superhero flop that earned her a Razzie and plenty of online mockery.
In a recent interview, Johnson didn’t shy away from talking about what went wrong. She opened up about the chaotic production behind Madame Web, hinting that the final cut was worlds away from what she and the cast had imagined. She pointed to larger problems in Hollywood, like too many cooks in the kitchen and decisions being driven more by marketing than by story. Here is what she said!
Dakota Johnson finally reveals what went wrong with Madame Web!
While Madame Web may now live on as a punchline to every award ceremony opening monologue, Dakota Johnson sees the film as a symptom of a bigger problem. Behind the scenes, the project was a case study in how creativity can suffer when too many hands are on the steering wheel.
According to Johnson, the decisions made during production weren’t always rooted in storytelling or artistic vision, but rather driven by marketing strategies and technical checklists.
The result was a film that lacked cohesion and heart, one that felt more like a product than a story. Johnson noted how often those making the final calls didn’t seem particularly interested in film as an art form, and the project suffered from that disconnect.
Characters were underdeveloped, scenes felt disjointed, and the plot struggled to land because it was trying too hard to serve a franchise rather than tell a story people would enjoy. In an interview with Sean Evans on Hot Ones, she said,
I think it’s hard when creative decisions are made by committee and it’s hard when creative decisions are made by people who don’t even really watch movies or know anything about them, and that tends to be what’s occurring a lot.
Hollywood’s obsession with building cinematic universes, also, Johnson implied, can sometimes strip away the magic that makes films memorable in the first place.
As she further stated,
When something does well, studios want to keep that going so they remake the same things, but humans don’t want that. They want fresh, they want to feel new things, experience new things, see new things, so I don’t know, I guess it’s all just a bit of a mess right now, isn’t it?
When studios focus too much on familiar IPs and old ideas, they often forget what audiences really want: something new, emotional, and exciting. For Dakota Johnson, Madame Web wasn’t just a movie that didn’t work; it was also a sign that Hollywood is slowly drifting away from real creativity.
How Dakota Johnson really felt while the whole world was hating on Madame Web!
In her first-ever podcast appearance on Good Hang with Amy Poehler, Dakota Johnson also spoke candidly about how it truly felt to be at the center of Madame Web. And while she took all the criticism in stride, behind the jokes was a deeper frustration with the way things played out.
Johnson revealed just how disorienting it was to sign onto a project she believed in, only for the final result to be something completely different. As an actor who pours her mind, body, and emotion into each role, that kind of drastic shift felt like losing control of her own work. It is just painfully disappointing, she said,
So, I think about this a lot because… we don’t have control over how something turns out anymore. No one does. Like, very, very few directors or actors, like Tom Cruise maybe, does, you know?
But I don’t.
She admitted that actors today, even big names, often don’t have the power to protect the integrity of the stories they sign onto. Only a few, like Tom Cruise, she noted, might have the power to steer the ship.
For most, it means watching projects morph into something they didn’t sign up for, with little say in the matter. She further explained,
I’ve signed on to a movie that is, by the end of shooting it, a completely different script than what I attached to. And that is a wild thing to—like a crazy journey to go on as an artist, because you’re like, ‘Okay, I’m doing something with my actual body and my actual mind and my heart, my emotions, I’m using things,’ and it’s just being taken and f-cked with.
But you can’t do anything about it. Like, what am I going to do, f-cking cry about Madame Web? No, I’m gonna laugh.
Still, the experience left her reflective. Thankfully, she’s taken it all in stride, keeping her wit intact and her vibe unbothered. These days, she’s onto projects that actually let her stretch her creative muscles. But Madame Web was a wake-up call that in Hollywood, no matter how talented or passionate one is, the steering wheel isn’t always in their hands!
Madame Web is currently available on Netflix to stream.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
