Given the widespread loathing and the massive flop rejection of Madame Web, Dakota Johnson naturally has to distance herself from it (“who, me?) and more or less throw the carcass under the bus. Hence her chat with Bustle‘s Charlotte Owen (3.5.24):

“[Making Madame Web] was definitely an experience for me. 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.” [Translation: ‘Nobody believed I was supergirl material….I look too passive or spacey or something.”]

“And I know that now. But 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?’ But 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.

“It’s so hard to get movies made, and in these big movies that get made — and it’s even starting to happen with the little ones, which is what’s really freaking me out — 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.

“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.”