‘Twilight’ Star’s $72 Million Superhero Film Was One of 2005’s Biggest Box Office Flops But it Still Obliterates Dakota Johnson’s Madame Web in One Regard
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, which was released 19 years ago, was a family-oriented 3D movie by Robert Rodriguez based on the story created by his son Racer. In the movie, a young boy named Max creates his own superhero named Sharkboy, and the movie shows how they transform into superheroes and save their world. The goal of the film was to entertain children by providing colorful graphics and an exciting plot.
On the other hand, Madame Web falls under Sony’s cinematic universe. In the film, Madame Web is depicted as younger than in the comics and is portrayed by Dakota Johnson. The film gives hints related to the Spider-Verse and also shows some narratives linked to the Marvel universe.
Poor Performance of Both The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl and Madame Web
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl starring Twilight fame Taylor Lautner failed to make waves with a $50 million budget (according to Box Office Mojo), making it one of the most unsuccessful movies of the year 2005. The movie made around $72 million at the worldwide box office.
In 2023, Dakota Johnson’s Madame Web also did not work out. The production budget of the movie was around $80 million (according to The Numbers), and it made around $100,298,817 at the worldwide box office. Despite both films’ shortcomings, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl managed to outshine Madame Web in one significant aspect, which is the critic reviews.
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl has a 20% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes. According to critics, the main issue in the movie was the poor screenplay and lack of story. On the other hand, Madame Web is one of the least-rated superhero movies of all time. It has a critic rating of just 11% on Rotten Tomatoes. Apart from the lack of a clear script, poorly developed characters, and screenplay, the casting of the movie was also questioned.
Besides critic ratings, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl also beats Madame Web in box-office profit margin. According to The Numbers, Sharkboy and Lavagirl was released in 2,655 theaters and had a profit margin of 1.4 times its production budget. Madame Web was released in 4,013 theaters and made a profit of 1.3 times its production budget (according to The Numbers).
The former had a run of 4.8 weeks per theater on average, which is more than 3.6 weeks per week for the latter. Madame Web failed to set the proper tone and failed to engage the traditional Marvel audiences, and it did not establish a new generation of fans among the viewers.
Madame Web‘s Connection to Spider-Man and Its Future in the Sony Universe
Madame Web was promoted as a standalone movie where no other superhumans from Sony’s cinematic universe will feature, and it happened so. Cassie Webb, played by Dakota Johnson, looks entirely unrelated to Spider-Man’s realm. However, subconsciously, it is linked to the image of the wall-crawler.
The plot of the movie takes place in 2003, and it shows Webb’s transformation from a regular person to an enhanced human due to the spider bite on her pregnant mother. However, this is as far as the obvious parallels between the two can go. There are no scenes of Spider-Man swinging across New York, no one-liners about great power and great responsibility.
But we do see the Daily Bugle newspaper, and more importantly, we see Ben Parker and his sister-in-law, Mary, who gives birth to a boy, which is a nod to Peter Parker, but he is more like a cameo than a subplot.
This slight association brings into question Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU). But it is a cinematic universe that does not even include Spider-Man. This is seen in Venom movies as well, which derive their plots from the comic book rivalry between the symbiote and Spider-Man, but the movies appear without the wall-crawler. The SSU appears to be a universe where Spider-Man’s secondary characters are at the front, but when Spider-Man himself is absent, things don’t feel right.
As for Madame Web, her role in the future of Sony’s cinematic universe remains uncertain. As the film received negative reviews and performed weakly at the box office, there are very few chances for a sequel. It is a trend that has become all too common in the SSU, with only the Venom movies managing to turn a profit.
The failure of Morbius and Madame Web at the box office despite having relatively low budgets shows that Sony’s gamble of creating a franchise around Spider-Man spin-offs is in trouble.
With the upcoming Venom: The Last Dance showing the conclusion of Tom Hardy‘s symbiote franchise and Kraven the Hunter still in development, the SSU’s path appears unclear. Sony might move to television with projects like Spider-Man Noir, starring Nicolas Cage. For now, fans can see the meeting of Madame Web and Spider-Man in the animated series of the nineties.
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl is now available on Netflix and Madame Web is available on Netflix, Prime Video, and Apple TV.
