Madame Web is a Marvel movie, but it’s completely standalone. It’s not a part of the MCU, and it doesn’t connect to the other Marvel movies that Sony has produced, like Venom and Morbius. But that’s something that could change in the future, with Sony’s Kraven the Hunter coming up later this year, and the MCU’s preoccupation with the multiverse allowing any Marvel-related thing to theoretically be incorporated if Disney and Sony can make a deal for it.
And it helps that certain aspects of Madame Web, about a woman who gets the ability to see the future thanks to a mythical Amazonian spider, could make it pretty easy to integrate into a greater franchise if they want to. Let’s talk about what exactly those things are.
Warning: The rest of this article will contain major spoilers for Madame Web, including details about its ending.
There are two particular items in Madame Web that we’ll focus on for this discussion–the first being that it takes place in 2003. With no direct connections to any other movies that we know of, 2003 seems like a pretty random time for this movie to be set. But it makes more theoretical sense when you consider the other thing.
The title character of Madame Web is Cassie (Dakota Johnson), who starts the movie out as an EMT who drives an ambulance really well. Her partner on the job is Ben (last name not mentioned), played by Adam Scott. Ben has a new girlfriend whose name he won’t share with Cassie, and his sister Mary (Emma Roberts) is so pregnant that Cassie gets roped into going to her baby shower. At the shower, they play a game in which the guests try to guess what the baby’s name will be. Cassie, in one of her early premonitions, guesses “Ben,” but Mary scoffs at that. In this vision, Mary is about to say the name they chose, but she’s cut off.
Ben and Mary are absent from the film for a while once the movie’s plot kicks in, but they pop back up later, when Mary goes into labor and Cassie has to get her to the hospital. This whole thing inspires several questions, but there’s one on our mind in particular.
Is Adam Scott playing Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben in Madame Web?
Given that Madame Web is so closely related to Spider-Man, it’s not difficult to do the math on all this: Mary is Mary Parker, and she’s giving birth to Peter Parker, and that would mean that Adam Scott has to be Uncle Ben. The timing doesn’t quite line up for Tom Holland’s MCU Spider-Man, because it would make him 12 or 13 during the events of Captain America: Civil War, and that’s slightly too young. But it’s close enough that we could probably just roll with it if we had to. I should stress, however, that these characters’ identities are not confirmed–these references are implied, not explicit.
I asked Madame Web director SJ Clarkson about the film’s curious place on the timeline and what exactly that means, but she says that stuff was already in the screenplay before she became involved with the movie.
“2003 was in the script I was sent, to be honest. I love that era, I love that time, it reminded me of when I was, like, in my, I want to say 20s, I think I can still say that,” Clarkson told me, laughing, citing the “music and the wardrobe” as specific elements she honed in on, which fits really well as fashion has a decidedly early aughts sort of vibe at the moment.
Without a clear answer as to why these elements were included, it’s probably best not to assume anything about whether or not they’ll be followed up on in the future. These Easter eggs, while definitely major details, function more as a framework to allow it to connect to other Marvel films without forcing it to definitely do so. It exists on its own right now, but it’s got the infrastructure in place if they want to do something else with it later.
That said, one of the questions I was able to ask Dakota Johnson was about other Marvel characters she might want to fight with or team up against, and Kraven the Hunter, whose movie is out later this year, was the only name she mentioned.
“I don’t know, there’s a lot of characters that I think would be really fun to work with. I’m excited for the new Kraven movie. I think that will be cool,” Johnson said. That comment probably doesn’t mean anything huge, since it’s just Sony’s next Marvel movie–Johnson and the rest of Madame Web’s stars would have been asked to mention it if the opportunity arose. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be the most shocking thing in the world if the Kraven movie is set around the same time as Madame Web, which could allow for a natural crossover.
But, still, it’s best not to make assumptions about these things. As things stand now, with the MCU in flux, I wouldn’t expect Madame Web to tie in explicitly with a proper Spider-Man movie any time soon. But by including those Peter Parker Easter eggs in the movie, it’ll be ready if or when the time comes.
Madame Web ending explained
Putting aside all that Spider-Man stuff for a moment, Madame Web ends with a climactic rooftop battle between Cassie, with the three teens she’d been protecting, and the villainous spider-person Zeke Sims under a giant, old-timey Pepsi sign. During this fight, Cassie’s full mental powers are unlocked, allowing her to transcend her physical form a little bit in order to be in multiple places at once. Cassie wins with a trick, maneuvering Zeke into position for the big P from the sign to fall on him. He might be dead, or he might not be, but he’s no longer a threat in this movie.
Cassie herself is nearly killed in the process, but the trio of future Spider-Women perform CPR on her and manage to save her. The price for Cassie ends up being pretty high even so: she loses her eyesight and her ability to walk as a result of the battle. That leads her to embrace the new state of things–in the final scene in the movie, the whole group is back at Cassie’s home. She’s in a slick new wheelchair, and wearing slick new sunglasses, as the girls get ready for the day, the four of them now a unit. Though, as far as we know, the younger trio still don’t have their spider-powers yet. It’s a bit of a strange place for the movie to end, but it certainly looks like they’re ready for whatever the next threat is.
