Warning: This submit incorporates spoilers for Madame Net.
Three Spider-Man motion pictures are hitting theaters in 2024, however none of these three motion pictures are literally about Spider-Man—and even function the pleasant neighborhood web-slinger as a personality in any respect. Madame Net, which is now in theaters, is an entry in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, a group of movies that take full benefit of the studio’s possession of Spidey movie rights at the same time as the principle character is primarily making live-action appearances within the Disney-owned Marvel Cinematic Universe the place Tom Holland performs him.
And but, Madame Net, like Morbius earlier than it, and presumably like this yr’s upcoming Kraven the Hunter and one other Venom sequel after it, does have connections to Spider-Man. Madame Net’s connections to Spider-Man are fairly specific, however the movie isn’t seemingly linked to any established model of Spider-Man that viewers may already be conversant in. Right here’s a spoiler-filled clarification of how Madame Net matches within the complicated, effectively, internet of Spider-Man motion pictures.
Learn extra: Everything You Need to Know About Madame Web
There’s no Spider-Man, however there may be Peter Parker (type of)
Madame Net’s title character is a girl with the ability to see the long run who’s a blind aged lady within the comics and is performed by Dakota Johnson (neither blind nor aged) within the film. (Her comedian e-book origin story and background are hardly required studying for this closely reimagined model of the character.) A paramedic residing in New York Metropolis within the yr 2003 fairly than the current day—which is necessary—Cassie Webb turns into concerned on the planet of superheroes when she begins getting visions of the long run. She should try to save lots of three teenage ladies performed by Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, and Isabela Merced from being murdered by a person named Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), who has connections to Cassie’s lifeless mom from her days researching spiders within the Amazon earlier than she died (as infamously referenced within the film’s trailer). Ezekiel has goals that these three teenagers, who will change into B-list Spider-Girls characters from the comedian books in some future, will kill him until he kills them first.
Spider-Man doesn’t exist on the planet of Madame Net—or, fairly, he doesn’t exist but. Cassie’s finest buddy is Ben Parker, Peter Parker’s well-known father determine. As performed by Adam Scott, this Ben isn’t fairly Uncle Ben but, however his sister Mary (Emma Roberts) is pregnant with Peter. (The lady who will change into Aunt Could is alluded to as someone Ben’s began seeing however isn’t named or seen, and Peter’s dad Richard is equally unseen, as he’s away on enterprise.)
The film ends with Ezekiel’s remaining confrontation with Cassie and the three teenagers whereas Mary is giving start. The dangerous man practically blows up the automobile that they’re all in whereas Ben is driving them to the hospital however Cassie saves the day—and in doing so saves the long run Spider-Man. Ben, the person who will finally increase Peter and educate him about nice energy and nice duty, is current for Peter’s start. Peter’s identify is conspicuously, intentionally, by no means clearly mentioned within the film, however everyone knows that’s Peter Parker.
When one of many teenagers notes that Ben’s going to have all of the enjoyable of getting a child with none of the duty as a result of he’s an uncle fairly than a father, Cassie quips that she wouldn’t be so positive of that. It’s a enjoyable little nod to his future, but it surely additionally implies that Cassie is aware of that Peter’s start dad and mom are going to die. Grim!
Presumably, in 16 or so years after the tip of the film, child Peter Parker can have grown up and he’ll get bit by a radioactive spider and Ben will probably be murdered, resulting in his crime-fighting profession. By no means thoughts that, in accordance with the fiction of Madame Web, there may already be 4 spider-themed superheroes already energetic by the point Peter comes of age. The entire Spider-Girls characters (Julia Cornwall, Mattie Franklin, and Anya Corazon) gained their Spidey-like powers by means of totally different, unrelated means than Peter Parker did within the comics. However, all of them had been so clearly impressed by the unique Spider-Man—each in fiction and in actuality—that it feels slightly odd to have them preventing crime in costumes that resemble Spider-Man’s.
The long run model of Spider-Man, Madame Net suggests, will develop up in a world the place his uncle was practically killed by a villain with spider powers carrying what primarily appears to be like like an evil Spider-Man go well with. In Madame Net’s world, Spider-Man—the unique Net-Slinger—is by-product. However that doesn’t matter a lot as a result of Madame Net is functionally in its personal continuity.
Madame Net isn’t linked to the MCU or another Spider-Verse (…type of)
Having Peter Parker seem within the film however as a child is hardly essentially the most egregious shoehorning-in of Spider-Man in one in every of Sony’s Spider-Man-less cinematic universe. The trailer for Morbius options pictures of the title character strolling by Spider-Man graffiti that’s not really there within the remaining movie and was inserted simply to fire up false hope that Morbius would have an actual Spider-Man connection. (That movie’s post-credits sequence brings the MCU’s Vulture into the Morbius world, and he appears to have a grudge towards Spider-Man regardless of there being no proof that he actually exists on this universe.) Spider-Man doesn’t appear to exist throughout the world of the Venom motion pictures however the titular Symbiote is aware of who he’s because of multiversal connections, and Tom Hardy’s character briefly travels to the MCU as a result of occasions of Spider-Man: No Approach House.
Madame Net is totally different as a result of it implies that Spider-Man will certainly exist on this movie’s universe, because the movie is about in 2003 and Peter Parker has been born. Nevertheless, whereas the movie’s selection of time interval makes it conceivable that it may act as a prequel to a different established Spider-Man spin-off universe, the information don’t fairly match. It’s definitely not a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which, once more, is owned by Disney fairly than Sony, the studio behind Madame Net). Dakota Johnson isn’t operating round a world through which Captain America and Tony Stark exist. There’s no proof that Madame Net or the three Spider-Girls—none of whom have really obtained their superpowers by the point the movie ends—exist in what can be Morbius or Venom’s previous, however there’s probably not any proof they don’t exist, both. That makes Madame Net functionally a standalone movie no matter its theoretical potential to be a prequel.
And but, technically Madame Net is a part of the bigger Spider-Man cinematic multiverse—which is about to proceed with a 3rd Venom film and a Kraven the Hunter movie in Sony’s movies, one other animated Spider-Verse movie, and there’s speak that Tom Holland may return for a fourth Spider-Man movie within the Disney-owned MCU canon. Madame Net doesn’t immediately connect with another Spider motion pictures, previous or future, but it surely simply may. Between Throughout the Spider-Verse (which featured a live-action cameo from a Venom actor) and Spider-Man: No Approach House bringing Andrew Garfield and Toby Maguire’s Spider-Males into the MCU’s continuity, there’s plenty of precedent for any and all Spider-Man content material to be only a multiversal portal and a crossover away from being canon. So, whereas Madame Net doesn’t have any actual connections to another Spider-Man film, it’s not not linked to them. You don’t have to have Madame Net’s means to see the long run to grasp Spider-Man motion pictures, however it could definitely assist.
