Madame Web has been in theaters since Valentine’s Day. But with the first weekend in the rear-view mirror, we now have a better idea of the Madame Web box office numbers. And we also know how well it did versus the reported Madame Web budget.
So how well did the movie do in theaters? And did it do well enough for there to be a Madame Web 2? Let’s get into it.
Madame Web Box Office Numbers: What Were The Box Office Earnings For Opening Weekend?
Madame Web opened to $6,051,012 on Wednesday, February 14. Not a great start for the movie, but certainly not the worst opening of all time. Slightly less great for the Sony movie: it has consistently ranked number two on the box office charts every day through today… Not the place you want to be for a big-budget superhero movie.
That all said, the movie saw a bit of a bump and came in slightly higher than expected over the weekend… Particularly given the poor reviews and general lack of interest from audiences. By the end of today (Presidents’ Day in the United States) it’s expected to be at $25.8 million domestically. Which is not great, Bob!
Worldwide, the current estimate for the movie is $51.5 million dollars if box office grosses pan out the way they’re expected through the end of today.
What Is The Madame Web Budget?
Budgets for Hollywood movies are notoriously difficult to pin down for a number of reasons. The first is that the studio definitely doesn’t want to talk about it. It’s the making money they want the focus to be on. Second, budgets are complicated things, tied up with tax incentives, contracts, and often the “reported” budget doesn’t include marketing costs — which can be as much as double the production budget, if not more.
That all said, while $80 million is the most commonly cited budget for Madame Web online, that seems to be a rough estimate generated by speculation that Sony kept costs “low” on the movie. Deadline, meanwhile, has gotten conflicting info: either the budget is way North of $100 million, or it’s lower than $100 million because of tax incentives.
See what we mean? Difficult to pin down. If you want to say somewhere around $100 million, that seems to be fair — and that’s less than half of what Disney will spend on their Marvel projects. So, not cheap; but not wildly expensive by modern moviemaking standards, either.
Madame Web Box Office Versus Budget: Will There Be A Madame Web 2?
The most important thing (inasmuch as any of this is important to someone who is not financially involved in making this movie) is the Madame Web box office, versus the budget… And whether the movie will do well enough to warrant a sequel.
With about half the budget made back in the first week, Deadline also notes that this is what Sony was looking for in order to not bleed cash on this production. However, a lot of the proof will be in the next few weeks. This is purely anecdotal, but versus Morbius where the reaction was dire, there’s a bit of a reclaiming of Madame Web on social with exactly the sort of response a studio craves for a bomb: this is so bad, you have to see it in theaters.
Whether there’s enough of that camp factor to give the movie legs (eight legs? Like a spider???) a la another Sydney Sweeny starring movie, Anyone But You, which just passed $100 million, is TBD. However, the movie doesn’t open in China until the beginning of March, and that’s a pretty big market for superhero movies.
So let’s say the movie does crawl past $100 million, ostensibly making back its budget (though again, that probably doesn’t include marketing). Is that enough to see Madame Web 2: Back In The Web?
…No, probably not. The critical lambasting this movie has taken doesn’t make it worth going back to the well. And it’s doubtful the cast will want to come back for another round after this, either. Possibly Sony could contractually force this through, but you don’t need visions of the future like Madame Web to know this is one spider that has woven its last web.
“this is so bad, you have to see it in theaters.”
I’m always stunned that some people actually think this. If I think a movie is bad, I’m certainly not going to waste my time – and money! – on it in a theatre. Never have, never will. You’re a kind of “special” to ever entertain a bad film.
Counter-point: the whole idea of watching something in the movie theater is about a shared experience. Certainly, I’ve had fantastic times watching fantastic movies with a roaring crowd. But I’ve also had some amazing times watching a not great movie when everyone is on the same wavelength.