It was bound to happen, but poor word of mouth (including a C CinemaScore rating) and terrible reviews are cratering Madame Web’s box office. According to the latest stats from Deadline, the movie may not even hit $20 million for the six-day holiday weekend, which would align with our box office predictions from earlier this week. On the other hand, Bob Marley: One Love is “Jammin’,” its way to a number one finish with a $35-38 million holiday weekend, meaning it’s opening at the high end of expectations.

So what’s going on here? 

Many will drag out the old “superhero fatigue” chestnut, but Madame Web just isn’t good. Modern audiences are a lot smarter than Hollywood gives them credit for. They know when a movie will perform and when it will not, and the word was out on Madame Web right from when they dropped the first trailer. The early reviews (such as mine) confirmed how bad it was, and with a C CinemaScore rating, it’s clear those who actually went to see it hated it too. This isn’t a case of review bombing. Were superhero fatigue the case, it likely would have opened a lot better – these are the kinds of numbers a big, notoriously awful flop does. I expect toxic word-of-mouth to tank the movie even more, and frankly, I doubt it will even hit $20 million over the holiday. 

Meanwhile, another movie starring Sydney Sweeney, Anyone But You, got a nice Valentine’s Day bump at the box office, beating Argylle on Wednesday, only for it to decline on Thursday as expected. It’s likely to cross $85 million this weekend, making it a big win for Sony. I bet the studio is kicking themselves for not making a full-on Spider-Woman movie with her in the lead rather than whatever Madame Web is. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sweeney’s management team is going to try and distance her from Madame Web as quickly as they can, given how notorious of a flop it’s bound to be. 

Is Madame Web as bad as we’ve been saying? Let us know in the comments. 

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