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Twyla Plack
Madame Web is a rather infamous movie, with the 2024 superhero film being the latest entry in Sony's Spider-Man Universe. Like the other films, Spider-Man himself wasn't present, but this was far from the only issue with the story. Despite its many criticisms from both critics and casual moviegoers, Madame Web may be cementing a unique path for similar movies when it comes to streaming.
Whether it's the result of the movie's memes or not, Madame Web is a huge hit on Netflix since it was released on the streaming service. This follows other disappointing superhero films seeing similar reception on Netflix and other streaming platforms. Said performances speak to how some of these movies might be best released solely as streaming content.
Sony's Madame Web was widely lambasted by many, and the movie ended up seeing similar failure at the box office. The production budget was $80 - $100 million USD, and fell short of earning back its production budget at $100 million worldwide. This is before marketing costs are factored in, of course, meaning that the film did not earn a profit. While not quite as disappointing as surefire bombs in the Marvel Cinematic Universe such as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels, it was definitely a major gash for Sony's shared universe, which so far lacks both cohesion and a critically successful entry. It also recalled the financial performance of its 2022 predecessor, Morbius, which was also something of an internet meme for similar reasons.
Much like both Morbius and Warner Bros. Discovery's 2022's Black Adam, however, Madame Web has finally woven a successful web beyond the big screen. All three of these movies were very popular when added to Netflix, but Madame Web has taken the cake and consistently been one of the most searched movies on the platform. It is possible that a lot of this traffic may be driven by the curiosity of viewers to see if the movie is truly as bad as the press made it out to be. Still, regardless of this possible reason, its success on Netflix is a stark contrast to its theatrical performance, which speaks to how niche superhero movies might succeed in the future.
Both 2023 and especially 2024 have seen the question of superhero fatigue being asked, not to mention a generally bleak box office for major movies as a whole. Part of this is due to post-pandemic inflation, but it's just as arguable that, even if economic conditions were optimal, streaming has changed the game too much for business as usual. Even beyond the superhero genre, the influx of streaming that occurred during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused audiences to prefer experiencing certain movies in this format as the "norm." It takes some sort of event-level movie or at least something the typical content found on Netflix to get them to go out to theaters.
Continuing this concept is the fact that theatrical runs for lower-performing movies are decreasing, with said films soon coming to some sort of streaming platform that audiences are already subscribed to. Even if they pay for video-on-demand options, this is ultimately more economical than taking the family or, in some cases, two adults out to the theater. Certain hits are no longer easy box office wins, with "superhero fatigue" being a microcosm of that issue. For instance, 2022 and 2023 saw huge success for horror movies, but the genre has seen several flops and box office disappointments in 2024, despite the relatively inexpensive budgets of those films.
Even franchise entries such as The First Omen and well-received films such as Abigail have failed to move this needle. Some of the only true success stories so far are the much hyped Dune: Part Two and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which were both experiences that begged for the biggest screens possible. Even though most superhero movies are inherently this same type of action-oriented spectacle, that's not necessarily a guarantee of hype. This is definitely the case whenever more niche or relatively unpopular characters are used. While there may not be a place for those characters on the big screen in solo films, they still might be able to headline their own movies in another venue.
Many of the more disappointing superhero movies from 2023 and 2024 were examples of films that were either poorly received or focused on niche characters that required strong and popular shared universes to generate interest. In other cases, the movies featured controversial actors, like Ezra Miller in the case of The Flash and Jonathan Majors in Ant-Man the Wasp: Quantumania. Further compounding issues with the latter movie was the Marvel Cinematic Universe losing steam by 2023.
Conversely, the DC Extended Universe had long since been controversial and finally ended in 2023 after numerous attempts to pivot to more popular entries and directions. Madame Web and Morbius featured tertiary characters within the Spider-Man universe, especially compared to how popular Venom is. On the other hand, if the Webslinger himself was present or at least more established in the world of those movies, there might have been a higher box office turnout. With Blue Beetle, it also might have done much better had the DCEU as a whole drawn more interest. The same can easily be said of Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
There's perhaps no world in which some of these movies truly succeeded beyond drastically changing them, but other projects might have been better released solely as streaming movies. That was always the plan for the Blue Beetle movie, which was going to be a Max exclusive until it was changed into a theatrical release. Handling things in this manner might have been better for the overall aura surrounding the movie, as its tepid box office performance overshadowed the fact that many critics gave it good reviews. Doing this with other films would have been good for Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney, which could have used the films to pad their streaming service catalogs.
Given the current box office climate and the reception to both many Marvel and DC films in the past two years, there does not appear to be a strong enough of a market for characters such as Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel (be it Carol Daners or Shazam) or Madame Web on the big screen. Still, the success of movies such as Madame Web on Netflix shows that there's another route for these projects. Once again, it's best for these movies to simply release on Netflix or other platforms that many people are already subscribed to. This way, there's arguably a bigger built-in audience than what might be guaranteed for a theatrical run.
Forbes reports that Madame Web had over 10 million views in its first week on Netflix, and if normal ticket prices (generally around $12-$13 USD) were applied to it, this would have equaled more in one week than the movie's actual box office run. Part of this is simply due to a wider, more diverse streaming audience compared to paying moviegoers. Bad reviews are a bigger issue for theatrical movies than streaming content, as the latter doesn't involve physically leaving the house and paying "extra" beyond a subscription service that's already been paid for that month.
This can even be seen in the MCU. As horribly received as 2023's Secret Invasion from Marvel Studios was, its nature as a streaming show meant that there was less ill will surrounding it than the wider theatrical release of The Marvels, which had middling but still better reviews. If making money is the goal, these more niche titles need to stick to streaming, while saving the big screen for bigger name superheroes. While this might sound antithetical to how properties such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe were born, it's not 2008 anymore, and the performance of Madame Web, among other movies, proves it.
After scouring Netflix for the best thrillers, best action flicks, best romantic comedies, best horror movies, best family films, and more, it's finally time for us to narrow down our streaming suggestions to the best movies, period.
Five years ago we got what remains one of the best superhero movies of all time with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. That's an incredibly hard act to follow, and yet the sequel to Miles Morales' journey, Across the Spider-Verse, is absolutely fantastic.
The truth is, you haven't known joy until you've experienced Paddington, one of the most charming movies imaginable. It's well agreed upon that the titular Peruvian-British bear, voiced oh-so-sweetly by Ben Whishaw, is the epitome of cuteness. You could watch Paddington on mute and, by the laws of nature, melt into a puddle over his marmalade-smeared little face. This isn't just a movie about gushing over cute animals, though, but one that gently tells a story about British colonialism, immigration, and xenophobia through the wacky adventures of a bear on the run.
On its surface, the latest from Todd Haynes (Carol, Velvet Goldmine) may seem like a thinly veiled reexamination of a true crime tale that had '90s tabloids absolutely obsessed. Screenwriter Samy Burch uses this familiar framework to construct a story that not only delivers a dishy parody of a melodrama, down to a string-zinging score and comically banal dialogue about hot dogs. She's also built a keen device to evaluate our obsession with true crime, for better or for ghoulish.
If Daniel Day-Lewis is really and truly permanently retired from acting (and let's hope he's not, for acting's sake), then he went out on a darn high note with this profoundly romantic anti-romance from director Paul Thomas Anderson. DDL's persnickety couture bastard Reynolds Woodcock (a name the director and his star came up with as a gag, which stuck) and his right-hand sis Cyril (Lesley Manville, who will go right through you) have the disgustingly wealthy eating out of their satin-lined gloves when the film begins.
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