News Analysis India

Tag: Dakota Johnson

  • Sydney Sweeney to play Julia Carpenter in Madame Web

    By Express News Service

    Actor Sydney Sweeney has confirmed that she will be playing the role of Julia Carpenter, also known as Spider-Woman, in the upcoming film which will center around Madame Web’s character. While the upcoming feature stars Dakota Johnson in the titular role, as per the comics, Sweeney’s character goes on to take the title of second Arachne who is subsequently called the second Madame Web.

    Speaking to Variety, Sweeney said, “I was freaking out, of course. I went straight to the comic store, and I bought every comic that mentioned my character.” Jim Shooter created the character Julia Carpenter.

    Apart from Sweeney and Dakota, the upcoming film also stars Celeste O’Connor, Isabela Merced, Tahar Rahim, Emma Roberts, Mike Epps, Adam Scott, and Zosia Mamet, among others. However, the details of their roles are kept under wraps.

    The film is directed by SJ Clarkson with a screenplay penned by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama. Madame Web is slated for a theatrical release on February 16, 2024.

    Actor Sydney Sweeney has confirmed that she will be playing the role of Julia Carpenter, also known as Spider-Woman, in the upcoming film which will center around Madame Web’s character. While the upcoming feature stars Dakota Johnson in the titular role, as per the comics, Sweeney’s character goes on to take the title of second Arachne who is subsequently called the second Madame Web.

    Speaking to Variety, Sweeney said, “I was freaking out, of course. I went straight to the comic store, and I bought every comic that mentioned my character.” Jim Shooter created the character Julia Carpenter.

    Apart from Sweeney and Dakota, the upcoming film also stars Celeste O’Connor, Isabela Merced, Tahar Rahim, Emma Roberts, Mike Epps, Adam Scott, and Zosia Mamet, among others. However, the details of their roles are kept under wraps.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    The film is directed by SJ Clarkson with a screenplay penned by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama. Madame Web is slated for a theatrical release on February 16, 2024.

  • Dakota Johnson starrer Spiderman spin-off ‘Madame Web’, ‘Kraven the Hunter’ to delay release 

    By ANI

    WASHINGTON: The release dates for Hollywood star Dakota Johnson starrer movie ‘Madame Web’ along with ‘Kraven the Hunter’, both of which are set in the Spider-Man universe, have now been shifted by Sony.

    According to Variety, ‘Madame Web’ is moving from October 6, 2023 release to February 16, 2024. S.J. Clarkson, whose Marvel bonafides include ‘Jessica Jones’ and ‘The Defenders,’ is directing. Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless will be writing the screenplay.

    ‘Madame Web’ serves as the origin story for the comic book character, a psychic whose abilities allow her to see into the spider world itself. In the comics, her abilities prove highly beneficial to Spider-Man and his allies, but given her condition, she’s never fought villains herself.

    Meanwhile, actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson led ‘Kraven the Hunter’ film has been shifted to October 6, 2023, from January 13, 2023. An untitled Sony/ Marvel Universe movie has also been dated for July 12, 2024.

    Variety described the character as, “Kraven- born Sergei Kravinoff, believes himself to be the world’s most noteworthy hunter, a name he earns at first through his prowess at tracking and killing big game, often with his bare hands. But eventually, his drive to keep up his hold on his title drives him to ingest a serum that invigorates him and slows down his ageing considerably.”

    ALSO READ | Disney announces ‘The Lion King’ sequel, ‘Snow White’, ‘Inside Out 2’ release dates

    The comic character ‘Kraven’ was introduced as a Spider-Man villain in 1964. Viewers will witness the character wearing a jacket apparently produced using a lion’s head and mane, and nothing much underneath.

    According to Variety, the upcoming Sony-Marvel collaboration film will be helmed by ‘Triple Frontier’ director J.C. Chandor. The script is written by Art Marcum, Matt Holloway and Richard Wenk. Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach are producing.

    Apart from these Marvel films, ‘Garfield’, voice starring Chris Pratt, has moved back three months to a Memorial Day weekend opening of May 24, 2024. It was previously set for release on February 16, 2024, reported The Hollywood Reporter.

    WASHINGTON: The release dates for Hollywood star Dakota Johnson starrer movie ‘Madame Web’ along with ‘Kraven the Hunter’, both of which are set in the Spider-Man universe, have now been shifted by Sony.

    According to Variety, ‘Madame Web’ is moving from October 6, 2023 release to February 16, 2024. S.J. Clarkson, whose Marvel bonafides include ‘Jessica Jones’ and ‘The Defenders,’ is directing. Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless will be writing the screenplay.

    ‘Madame Web’ serves as the origin story for the comic book character, a psychic whose abilities allow her to see into the spider world itself. In the comics, her abilities prove highly beneficial to Spider-Man and his allies, but given her condition, she’s never fought villains herself.

    Meanwhile, actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson led ‘Kraven the Hunter’ film has been shifted to October 6, 2023, from January 13, 2023. An untitled Sony/ Marvel Universe movie has also been dated for July 12, 2024.

    Variety described the character as, “Kraven- born Sergei Kravinoff, believes himself to be the world’s most noteworthy hunter, a name he earns at first through his prowess at tracking and killing big game, often with his bare hands. But eventually, his drive to keep up his hold on his title drives him to ingest a serum that invigorates him and slows down his ageing considerably.”

    ALSO READ | Disney announces ‘The Lion King’ sequel, ‘Snow White’, ‘Inside Out 2’ release dates

    The comic character ‘Kraven’ was introduced as a Spider-Man villain in 1964. Viewers will witness the character wearing a jacket apparently produced using a lion’s head and mane, and nothing much underneath.

    According to Variety, the upcoming Sony-Marvel collaboration film will be helmed by ‘Triple Frontier’ director J.C. Chandor. The script is written by Art Marcum, Matt Holloway and Richard Wenk. Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach are producing.

    Apart from these Marvel films, ‘Garfield’, voice starring Chris Pratt, has moved back three months to a Memorial Day weekend opening of May 24, 2024. It was previously set for release on February 16, 2024, reported The Hollywood Reporter.

  • Severance-star Adam Scott joins Dakota Johnson for ‘Madame Web’

    By Express News Service

    After his hit drama Severance landed an Emmy nomination, Adam Scott is joining the cast of the superhero film Madame Web. According to a report by Variety, the film stars Dakota Johnson in the titular role of a clairvoyant whose psychic abilities allow her to see within the spider world itself.

    It is reported that the film, produced by Sony, will be an origin story for the character, who served as an ally to Spider-Man in the Marvel comics. The rest of the cast includes Sydney Sweeney, who just received double Emmy nominations for Euphoria and The White Lotus, Emma Roberts, Celeste O’Connor, Isabela Merced, Tahar Rahim and Mike Epps. S.J. Clarkson directs the spinoff in Sony’s universe of Marvel characters. Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless wrote the script.

    The report adds that following the success of Venom starring Tom Hardy as the classic Spider-Man villain, Sony began building its own cinematic universe of Spidey characters. After last year’s sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Jared Leto starred in Morbius earlier this year as the bloodsucking vampire villain, Dr Michael Morbius. Scott will star in Season 2 of Severance, which was renewed earlier this year and hauled 14 Emmy nominations, including the best drama series.

    After his hit drama Severance landed an Emmy nomination, Adam Scott is joining the cast of the superhero film Madame Web. According to a report by Variety, the film stars Dakota Johnson in the titular role of a clairvoyant whose psychic abilities allow her to see within the spider world itself.

    It is reported that the film, produced by Sony, will be an origin story for the character, who served as an ally to Spider-Man in the Marvel comics. The rest of the cast includes Sydney Sweeney, who just received double Emmy nominations for Euphoria and The White Lotus, Emma Roberts, Celeste O’Connor, Isabela Merced, Tahar Rahim and Mike Epps. S.J. Clarkson directs the spinoff in Sony’s universe of Marvel characters. Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless wrote the script.

    The report adds that following the success of Venom starring Tom Hardy as the classic Spider-Man villain, Sony began building its own cinematic universe of Spidey characters. After last year’s sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Jared Leto starred in Morbius earlier this year as the bloodsucking vampire villain, Dr Michael Morbius. Scott will star in Season 2 of Severance, which was renewed earlier this year and hauled 14 Emmy nominations, including the best drama series.

  • Dakota Johnson in talks to star in Sony’s ‘Madame Web’ 

    By PTI

    LOS ANGELES: Hollywood star Dakota Johnson is set to step into the world of superheroes with “Madame Web”.

    The project comes from Sony Pictures that is plotting multiple projects in its efforts to expand its Spider-Man universe, dubbed as Sony Universe of Marvel Characters.

    According to The Hollywood Reporter, Johnson is in negotiations for the movie, which will be directed by SJ Clarkson.

    Screenwriters Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless have penned the script.

    Madame Web is a clairvoyant mutant who excels in predicting the future specifically of Spider-themed superheroes, having mentored not only Peter Parker’s web-slinger, but also multiple generations of heroes calling themselves Spider-Woman The character was introduced in 1980’s “The Amazing Spider-Man No.210” comics.

    Sony, which controls the film rights to Spider-Man and other related characters, has already released “Venom” (2018) and “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” (2020) as part of Sony Universe of Marvel Characters.

    Up next is Jared Leto-starrer “Morbius”, which has been written by Sazama and Sharpless.

    The movie is set to be released worldwide in April.

    Sony also has “Kraven the Hunter” in the works with star Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

    Dakota Johnson most recently featured in the Netflix movie “The Lost Daughter”, directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. 

  • Warner Bros. Pictures, HBO Max bag rights to Dakota Johnson’s ‘Am I OK?’

    By ANI

    WASHINGTON: Warner Bros. Pictures and HBO Max have bought the rights to Dakota Johnson’s ‘Am I OK?,’ a romantic comedy that premiered this week to positive reviews at the virtual Sundance Film Festival.

    As per Variety, the film starring Dakota as a woman grappling with her sexuality will premiere on HBO Max at a yet-to-be-determined date.

    ‘Am I OK?’ follows 32-year-old Lucy (Dakota), who lives in Los Angeles and figures out later in life that the reason her dates with the opposite gender never end with anything more than a handshake is that she is not attracted to men. With the help of her life-long friend Jane (Sonoya Mizuno), Lucy attempts to navigate coming out in her 30s.

    As per Variety, the storyline is loosely based on screenwriter Lauren Pomerantz’s own life.

    Apart from Dakota and Mizuno, the cast also includes Jermaine Fowler, Kiersey Clemons, Molly Gordon and Sean Hayes.

    Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne co-directed ‘Am I OK?,’ which was written by Pomerantz and produced by Picturestart, Gloria Sanchez Productions and Dakota’s TeaTime Pictures.

    Dakota, Notaro, Allyene and Pomerantz produced ‘Am I OK?’ along with Jessica Elbaum, Will Ferrell, Erik Feig, Lucy Kitada and Ro Donnelly. Executive producers were Alex Brown, Royce Reeves Darby and Shayne Fiske.

    UTA Independent Film Group brokered the deal for ‘Am I OK?.’

    For the unversed, Dakota’s Sundance rom-com ‘Cha Cha Real Smooth’ was also picked by Apple TV Plus at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

  • Apple acquires Dakota Johnson film Cha Cha Real Smooth

    By Express News Service

    Apple has acquired director Cooper Raiff’s Cha Cha Real Smooth, starring Dakota Johnson in the lead role, worldwide distribution. According to Variety, the acquisition is the biggest deal in the ongoing 2022 Virtual Sundance Film Festival, costing around the streamer around $15 million.

    The film premiered at the festival on January 23 in the US Dramatic Competition category. Raiff also plays the role of a college graduate from New Jersey who gets into a relationship with a young mom and her autistic teenage daughter. The film also features Leslie Mann, Brad Garrett and Evan Assante in supporting roles.

  • Biweekly Binge: Of faces and self-respect

    Maggie Gyllenhaal directed a short in Homemade, a Netflix anthology reflecting living and filmmaking during the peak of COVID-19. The film is an adaptation of the novel by Elena Ferrante. Gyllenhaal set it in a future that is far and yet feels so near where a man deals with a life stripped of togetherness and community in the shadow of an unknown threat. The film defined the solitude of the lockdown even for the privileged. 

    Leda Caruso (Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley playing the younger Leda) arrives on a solo holiday in seaside Greece. A professor from Cambridge, Massachusetts, she is a scholar of poetry and their Italian translations.

    She observes Nina (Dakota Johnson) and their big family vacationing in the same beach, where Nina is overwhelmed by her toddler Elena and an aggressive looking husband. Like an impulse, what she observes triggers an anniversary trauma in Leda, the trauma of being a mother and living with the complete knowledge of her limitations or even complete disregard for the relationship. Leda looks on as Nina suffocates under the weight of a daughter and a husband while Lyle (Ed Harris) the caretaker at the inn and Will the assistant – generations apart – try to win Leda’s affection. 

    The film ebbs and flows in two tracks, one with Leda making up for lost time, not finding the right words with both Will and Lyle and another swinging between saviour and destroyer in Nina’s life as a mother. Gyllenhaal shifts between the life of a young academic in flux with two little daughters and a partner, often struggling to gain a foothold in either of the roles. Leda in Greece goes through the motions of remembrance of days past as the “unnatural mother” (her words), who is both irritable and awkward when pushed to deal with areas outside of her academic expertise. 

    The Lost Daughter is a film full of faces, the most important weapon according to Gyllenhaal. Colman, Johnson and Buckley are almost always in close-ups, their disposition conveying the stress, trauma and disinterest in playing the mother.

    All the three faces at various moments express unexpected joy, unadulterated disgust, complete contempt and, rarely, a caring glance. The Lost Daughter, therefore, needed the best actors to pull off Gyllenhaal’s vision for the adaptation and with this lot she’s in great hands.

    It’s also a film that establishes something Joan Didion wrote on self-respect, “In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues.”

    Leda may have doubts floating in her mind, but she retains that brand of self-respect – one that allows her to remain indifferent and not be swayed by any other life force, until she meets her double, Nina, a younger self.

    Quoting Didion again, “..one lives by doing things one does not particularly want to do, by putting fears and doubts to one side, by weighing immediate comforts against the possibility of larger, even intangible, comforts.”

    Leda’s preoccupation with her intellectual outlet over more mundane familial obligations were seldom a threat to her self-respect. She tells Nina how amazing it felt to walk away from her kids for three years. She was never in doubt and weighed the immediate comforts and vocations against the arguably long term investment of parenting. She’s not incapable of love. Her self-respect instils in her the ability to choose what to love.

    (The Lost Daughter is now streaming on Netflix)

  • Netflix bags rights for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s ‘The Lost Daughter’

    By PTI

    LOS ANGELES: Streaming service Netflix has acquired the rights for actor Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut “The Lost Daughter”.

    The deal, negotiated with Endeavour Content, covers US and remaining territories, Netflix said in a press release.

    The acquisition comes ahead of the film’s world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

    “The Lost Daughter” is based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Italian author Elena Ferrante.

    The film also stars Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, Peter Sarsgaard, Paul Mescal, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Ed Harris and Dagmara Dominczyk.

    The movie will follow Colman’s Leda, an elegant college professor who, while on a seaside vacation, becomes obsessed with a young woman, Nina (Johnson), and her young daughter, as she watches them on the beach.

    Their compelling relationship forces Leda to confront the trauma surrounding her own motherhood.

    Gyllenhaal has adapted the screenplay and also produced the feature film with Talia Kleinhendler and Osnat Handelsman-Keren for Pie Films, Charles Dorfman for Samuel Marshall Films and Endeavor Content.

    Gyllenhaal, who previously featured in “The Kindergarten Teacher” for Netflix, said she is excited to work with the streamer again.

    “They have supported so much of the work I am most proud of, and this is no exception. Netflix has consistently championed filmmakers that excite and inspire me and I’m delighted to be included in that company,” she said.

  • Henry Golding joins Dakota Johnson in Persuasion

    By Express News Service
    Henry Golding, best known for his performances in Crazy Rich Asians and The Gentlemen, is set to star opposite Dakota Johnson in the upcoming Netflix-produced adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion. 

    Akin to the several works of Austen, Persuasion has been adapted as many as five times into telefilms and TV shows over the years.

    The latest adaptation is expected to take a modern and witty approach while staying faithful to the celebrated novel. The news of Golding’s casting comes a month after Johnson was reported to be playing the novel’s protagonist Anne Elliot.

    The film’s official synopsis reads, “When Frederick Wentworth – the dashing one she once sent away – crashes back into her life, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart when it comes to second chances.”

    Carrie Cracknell, who earlier directed Jake Gyllenhall and Tom Sturridge in critically-acclaimed Broadway show Sea Wall/A Life, will be making her feature directing debut with Persuasion. Golding will also be seen in GI Joe spinoff Snake Eyes, which is scheduled to release worldwide in July.

  • Dakota Johnson to headline Netflix’s Persuasion adaptation

    By Express News Service
    Dakota Johnson is set to play Anne Elliot in Netflix’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Theatre director Carrie Cracknell will make her feature directorial debut with this film that will be written by Alice Victoria Winslow.

    Netflix said the latest adaptation takes a modern, witty approach to a beloved story while still remaining true to Jane Austen’s classic novel. Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot is an unconforming woman with modern sensibilities.

    When Frederick Wentworth – ‘the dashing one she once sent away’—crashes back into her life, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart when it comes to second chances, the film’s official logline reads.

    Persuasion will be produced by Andrew Lazar, Christina Weiss Lurie with Elizabeth Cantillon  Michael Constable and  David Fliegel serving as executive producers.