In case you missed it, the Sony spidey-movie debuted on Valentine’s Day to shambolic reviews and a lackluster box office. As recently as last month, the titular Madame Web herself hadn’t even seen it.
In a new interview with Bustle, Dakota reacted to the heavy panning the movie received. “Unfortunately, I’m not surprised that this has gone down the way it has,” she said.
Dakota chalked up her lack of surprise to how “hard” it is to get movies made, even at smaller studios. She explained, “Decisions are being made by committees, and art does not do well when it’s made by committee. Films are made by a filmmaker and a team of artists around them. You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms.”
The actor continued, “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 bullshit. Even if films start to be made with AI, humans aren’t going to fucking want to see those.”
“But it was definitely an experience for me to make that movie. I had never done anything like it before. I probably will never do anything like it again because I don’t make sense in that world. And I know that now,” she added, further saying that the initial project she signed onto was quite different from what came out on screens.
“It was a real learning experience, and 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,” Dakota said. “That’s why I have my own company. In a movie like that, I have no say about anything.”
You can read the full interview here.