Madame Web’s first trailer must be seen to be believed

The idea of Sony actually following through with its plans to make a standalone Spider-Man spinoff movie about the elderly clairvoyant hero Madame Web has always been a little hard to believe. But the film’s new trailer is the surest sign yet that Madame Web is definitely coming to theaters.

Seemingly set in a chunk of Sony’s spider-centric multiverse where neither Peter Parker nor Miles Morales are a big deal, Madame Web chronicles the origin story of Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson), a paramedic whose chance encounter with death while saving someone on the job leaves her with the ability to predict the future. At first, in the trailer, Cassandra can’t make heads or tails of what it means when she vividly envisions how scenarios around her might play out only for her to then realize that the things she’s seen haven’t happened yet.

But after Cassandra witnesses a man named Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) try to murder three young women in her visions, she realizes that he’s as dangerous as they are important, and even though Cassandra doesn’t entirely understand what it all means, she sets out to try and keep him from accomplishing his goal. Madame Web’s trailer doesn’t really spell out what universe it’s set in or why Sims’ supervillain costume looks something like a Spider-Man knockoff. 

But the trailer does tease how each of the women in Cassandra’s orbit like Julia Carpenter (Sydney Sweeney), Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor), and Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced) are destined to become various spider-themed heroes like in Marvel’s comics. As has been the case with Sony’s Venom movies, it’s still kind of weird to see all of these projects steeped in Spider-Man lore without Spider-Man actually being a part of the story. But with the studio gearing up for a third Spider-Verse movie and there being another big war on the horizon over in the MCU, it makes a certain kind of sense that Madame Web will be stuffed with new costumed faces when it hits theaters on February 14th, 2024.