In the aftermath of Madame Web’s lackluster critical and financial showing, its leading lady can already see the headlines coming: “Like, ‘Dakota Johnson Breaks Her Silence on Madame Web’s Fucking Box Office Failure,’” the actor told Bustle with a laugh in her first major interview since the movie’s debut. “It’s like, No, I’m not breaking any silence. I’m just talking.”
And staying true to her candid nature, Johnson didn’t mince words when asked about the “nasty reviews” Sony’s latest superhero film received. “Unfortunately, I’m not surprised that this has gone down the way it has,” she replied.
The problem with projects like this—large studio ventures that spring from lucrative intellectual property—is that “decisions are being made by committees, and art does not do well when it’s made by committee,” Johnson explained. “Films are made by a filmmaker and a team of artists around them. You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms. My feeling has been for a long time that audiences are extremely smart, and executives have started to believe that they’re not. Audiences will always be able to sniff out bullshit. Even if films start to be made with AI, humans aren’t going to fucking want to see those.”
The performer, who has started her own production company, TeaTime Pictures, said she likely wouldn’t make another Madame Web–esque film. “I had never done anything like it before. I probably will never do anything like it again because I don’t make sense in that world,” Johnson said. “And I know that now.”
Johnson previously told Vanity Fair about her complicated relationship with the Fifty Shades trilogy, and she shared similar feelings regarding her latest movie while speaking to Bustle. “Sometimes in this industry, you sign on to something and it’s one thing, and then as you’re making it, it becomes a completely different thing, and you’re like, Wait, what?” she said. “But it was a real learning experience, and of course it’s not nice to be a part of something that’s ripped to shreds, but I can’t say that I don’t understand.”
Johnson has hinted at behind-the-scenes discord throughout Madame Web’s press tour, revealing in one interview that “drastic changes” were made to the script and joking that it was “kind of like if AI generated your boyfriend’s perfect movie” during her recent Saturday Night Live monologue. Her costar Sydney Sweeney also got in on the roasting, saying in her SNL episode over the weekend: “You might have seen me in Anyone but You or Euphoria. You definitely did not see me in Madame Web.”
