Dakota Johnson Not Looking To Reenter Superhero Space Any Time Soon Post-‘Madame Web’: “I Don’t Make Sense In That World’

Following the critical and commercial failure of the Sony/Marvel pic Madame Web, don’t expect Dakota Johnson to reenter the superhero sphere any time soon.

In an interview with Bustle published on Tuesday, Johnson admitted, “I probably will never do anything like it again, because I don’t make sense in that world. And I know that now.”

Johnson indicated that from the start, she wasn’t entirely sure how the S.J. Clarkson-helmed film would turn out, saying that “sometimes in this industry, you sign on to something, and it’s one thing and then as you’re making it, it becomes a completely different thing, and you’re like, ‘Wait, what?'” She went on to call making her first superhero flick “a real learning experience, “adding that “of course it’s not nice to be a part of something that’s ripped to shreds, but I can’t say that I don’t understand.”

One major facet of Johnson’s issue with Madame Web was her sense that with this film — as with so many, big and small, these days — “decisions are being made by committees, even though “art does not do well when it’s made by committee.” She emphasized that “films are made by a filmmaker and a team of artists around them. You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms.”

Continued the actress, “My feeling has been for a long time that audiences are extremely smart, and executives have started to believe that they’re not. Audiences will always be able to sniff out bullsh*t. Even if films start to be made with AI, humans aren’t going to f***ing want to see those.”

Johnson has been candid in many a recent interview about her thoughts on Madame Web, telling EW early on, on the press circuit, that the experience of making the film felt “absolutely psychotic” given her prior inexperience with shooting on blue screen. “I was like, ‘I don’t know if this is going to be good at all! I hope that I did an okay job!'” she said. “But I trusted [Clarkson]. She works so hard, and she has not taken her eyes off this movie since we started.”

Released in theaters on February 14, Madame Web has Johnson playing Cassie Webb, a New York paramedic who looks to safeguard three young women from a deadly adversary who wants them destroyed, after beginning to demonstrate signs of clairvoyance. Also starring Sydney Sweeney, who joked “you definitely did not see me in Madame Web” in her SNL monologue this past weekend, the film has to date grossed just over $91 million worldwide.