Emma Roberts in 2019
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)Emma Roberts has become the latest actor to join the cast of the Marvel Universe Spider-Man spin-off film Madame Web.
Roberts will join a star-studded line-up including Euphoria’s Sydney Sweeney, Tahar Rahim (The Looming Tower, The Mauritanian) Celeste O’Connor (Ghostbusters: Afterlife) and Isabela Merced (Sweet Girl, Dora and the Lost City of Gold). Further details about Roberts’ role in the film are not yet known.
Madame Web, which is set to be released in July next year, will star Dakota Johnson as the titular mutant who has powers including telepathy and clairvoyance.
Details about the film are still under wraps. However, in the comic book The Amazing Spider-Man #21 which was first released in 1980, Madame Web is depicted as an old woman who is paralyzed and blind with a neuromuscular disease which means she has to be attached to a life support machine. Spider-Man approaches Madame Web when he needs help finding a kidnapped newspaper publisher.
This will be Roberts’ first role in a Marvel film. The actor, who started her career starring in Nancy Drew and Wild Child, has more recently had roles in Scream Queens, Paradise Hills and American Horror Story. Her latest film, Abandoned, was released in cinemas on June 17.
The actor will also star in the upcoming romantic comedy Maybe I Do alongside Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon and Richard Gere and has been working behind the camera too: Most recently she was an executive producer on Netflix’s supernatural teen drama series First Kill, which was released this month.
Madame Web will be directed by S.J. Clarkson, whose previous directing work includes Anatomy of a Scandal and some episodes of Collateral, Succession, Bates Motel and Orange Is the New Black. Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless - who have previously worked together on Morbius, Power Rangers and Gods of Egypt - have written the screenplay.
Speaking about her Madame Web role to Entertainment Tonight, Johnson said, “I can tell you pretty much nothing that isn’t already on the internet. I’m so excited. It’s pretty cool to be in the Marvel world, especially with a character that’s not so known.”
“I’m very excited. It’s always been a dream of mine to do some kind of massive action movie.”
Madame Web is coming on the back of some major Spider-Man success stories: 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home pulled in $1.9 billion worldwide at the Box Office while 2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage brought in over $500 million.
