There’s something to be said about the power of the internet when it latches onto a viral moment—like Madame Web‘s now infamous trailer quote, which doesn’t even appear in the actual Sony Pictures Spider-Man Universe movie. You know the one, where Dakota Johnson utters “He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.” It really just set the tone that would, for better or worse, lead the discourse about the film. To one of its stars, the film’s reception definitely suffered because of it.
In an interview with Variety, while promoting her current picture Space Cadet, Emma Roberts reflected on Madame Web‘s meme trajectory as a movie she believed in. “Things work; things don’t work. Everyone likes to act like they can predict if they’re going to work or they’re not. And the truth is, you can’t. Things do badly, and then they blow up later on TikTok. Things do well, but then you watch them, and you’re like, ‘This did well?’ There is no secret. It’s about doing something goodish and it hitting at the right time. Everything else is like a wish and a prayer,” she said.
Roberts played Mary Parker, Ben Parker’s very pregnant sister, in scenes opposite Madame Web‘s protagonist, Johnson—including a very memorable baby shower early on, and that pivotal third-act rescue sequence. She continued, “I’m not intimidated by failure, and I’m not intimidated by people having negative thoughts about something. I personally really loved Madame Web. I really enjoyed the movie. I thought everyone in it was great. The director, S.J. Clarkson, I think did an amazing job. She’s the reason I wanted to do that movie. If it wasn’t for internet culture and everything being made into a joke, I think that the reception would’ve been different. And that’s what bums me out about a lot of stuff, even stuff that I’ve done, is people just make such a joke out of everything now.”
Madame Web is now streaming on Netflix.
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