We already know how “Madame Web” completely flatlined this weekend. Its 6-day total is said to be at around a $25 million intake, which was clearly not helped by the scathingly bad reviews.
A major theatrical chain insider is telling THR that they could see the film’s “advance purchase sales declining in real time as buyers were refunding their tickets” on opening night. No doubt this max exodus was spurred by the bad reviews.
The film currently has an atrocious 13% on Rotten Tomatoes, 27 on Metacritic, earned a mediocre C+ on CinemaScore and sits at 3.8/10 on IMDb.
We also have an update on the film’s budget, which Sony had originally reported as being $80 million. THR says it actually took $100 million to produce “Madame Web.” Yikes. It’s obviously going to result in heavy losses for the studio.
The “Madame Web” failure is another indicator of how reviews, specifically Rotten Tomatoes, matter these days at the box office. It didn’t used to be like this, but the times have changed and aggregates are the make-it-or-break-it for many tentpoles movies.
The only silver lining for “Madame Web” is that some folks out there believe it will eventually have a healthy shelf life as a camp classic. The Los Angeles Times praised it as “the purest form of camp” and Slate raved, “It’s a travesty, a disaster … and I enjoyed the hell out of it.”