Madame Web is now on Netflix, which means the anti-hit (flop, I guess?) of the year is about to be seen by more eyeballs than your run-of-the-mill spider. And with the release of the film on the streamer, comes one, very important question… Is Madame Web connected to Spider-Man?
The posters and advertising certainly seemed to push that idea… What with the tagline “Her web connects us all,” and the inclusion of multiple elements that are pulled straight from the Spider-Man mythos. But I’ll cut to the end here and say that while elements of Madame Web are inspired by Spider-Man, the movie itself is not in any way connected to the other theatrical Spider-Man flicks.
That wasn’t always true, mind you. Reportedly, Sony looked to connect Madame Web to various iterations of Spider-Man… Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland’s versions, in particular (sorry, Tobey Maguire). But for reasons we are not privy to, the decision was made to excise any references to Spider-Man. Though at least part of the reason is Sony’s ongoing deal with Marvel Studios, and the MCU.
There are still connections, albeit ones from the comics. In the movie, we meet Ben Parker (Adam Scott), aka Uncle Ben, and Mary Parker (Emma Roberts), aka the mother of Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man. And we even meet a little unnamed baby who is, indeed Peter Parker. In fact, some might argue that he’s Spider-Jesus and Madame Web is a Christmas movie. But that would be crazy, right? Ha ha ha.
We also meet the poorly-dubbed Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), who is treated and dresses like an Evil Spider-Man. We also meet a Las Arañas, a tribe in Peru who dress like Spider-Man as well and have spider-powers. And perhaps most obviously in flash-forwards, we see Sydney Sweeny’s Julia Cornwall, Isabela Merced’s Anya Corazon, and Celeste O’Connor’s Mattie Franklin all as Spider-Womans. That’s also straight from the comics, but again, here, they are not connected to Peter Parker’s Spider-Man in the movie.
The only tenuous connection it has is that it is part of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU), which also includes the Venom movies, Morbius, and the upcoming Kraven the Hunter. But at the same time, given the flop nature of the flick, Sony was quick to distance Madame Web from the rest of these films, too. Honestly, she should have seen this coming.
