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Sydney Sweeney said in a recent interview with GQ UK that starring in Sony’s “Madame Web” was a “strategic business decision” that more or less paid off even though the film was one of the most notorious box office flops of the year. In Sweeney’s eyes, “Madame Web” landed her at Sony Pictures and that’s where she was able to have a big box office hit with the romantic comedy “Anyone but You.”
“For me, that movie was a staple, it’s what allowed me to build a relationship with Sony,” Sweeney told the publication. “Without making ‘Madame Web’ I would have no relationship with those who make the decisions there. I do everything in my career not only because of that story, but because of strategic business decisions. Thanks to that, I was able to sell ‘Anyone But You’. I was able to get ‘Barbarella.'”
“Madame Web” was widely panned by film critics earlier this year and flopped at the box office, where it has yet to surpass the $100 million mark worldwide. It’s a far cry from the success Sweeney achieved with “Anyone but You,” a romantic comedy co-starring Glen Powell that opened in December and generated $214 million worldwide for Sony Pictures. Sweeney said he was able to get “Anyone but You” off the ground thanks to the Sony connections he made by logging on to “Madame Web.” He is also developing a remake of “Barbarella” at Sony in which he is expected to star.
“(‘Madame Web’) is such a big movie with so many people involved,” Sweeney added to GQ UK about the failure of the superhero. “I have just been hired as an actor and I am happy to give life to a character that excites my little cousins. There’s no outcome I can control on a movie like this, especially when I’m not a producer. You just go with whatever happens and you go for it… There’s definitely a different formula when you make a movie like that, which is very different from what I’m used to.”
Sweeney starred in “Madame Web” as Julia Cornwall, a version of Spider-Woman. The film sets Julia up for future films in which she could be a superhero, and Sweeney had this to say when asked about returning to the role: “I think if the story is right and you have the right team, I would love to do it. “
During a recent interview with VarietySweeney stressed that he wants to continue acting in films that he also produces so that he can have some of the authority that he lacked in a project like “Madame Web.”
“I want to be as involved as possible in the process of any project moving forward,” he said. “I love being in the room to be able to solve problems and propose ideas. It’s very important to have several people at the table instead of just one: everyone who can collaborate and really help build a project. Everyone is needed. In ‘Madame Web’ it was very difficult not to be able to get as involved as I love. And I felt very free with ‘Anyone but You’ and ‘Inmaculate’ being able to have that.”
“Madame Web” became such a punching bag on social media after its release that Sweeney herself joked about it on “Saturday Night Live” (“You definitely didn’t see me on ‘Madame Web,’” she said), while Jimmy Kimmel even had a hint of “Madame Web” in his monologue at the Oscars.
“The people in this room somehow managed to create so many great films and memorable performances,” Kimmel said. “Tonight is full of enormous talent and untold potential, just like ‘Madame Web’.”
Dakota Johnson, Sweeney’s co-star in “Madame Web” he told Bustle earlier this month that the film’s reception was no surprise.
“It was definitely an experience for me to make that movie,” Johnson said. “I had never done anything like this before. I’ll probably never do something like that again because I have no point in that world. And I know that now. But sometimes in this industry, you sign up for something, and it’s one thing, and then while you’re doing it, it becomes something completely different, and you’re like, ‘Wait, what?’ But it was a real learning experience and of course it’s not nice to be a part of something that’s in tatters, but I can’t say I don’t understand it.”
“Madame Web” continues to be presented in theaters throughout the country thanks to Sony. Sweeney’s new film, “Immaculate,” opens in theaters March 22 on Neon.