Emma Roberts is the latest to join Sony Picture’s Madame Web adaptation.
Deadline announced the news Monday, noting this will be the first Marvel venture for Roberts. Sony Pictures had no comment on the casting and Roberts role has not been confirmed.
In the comics, Madame Web has been portrayed as a supporting character in the Spider-Man series. She is an elderly clairvoyant and precognitive mutant with myasthenia gravis, a chronic autoimmune and neuromuscular disease, that is connected to life-support that resembles a spiderweb. She first showed up in the comics in 1980.
There are two Madame Webs in the canon — Cassandra Webb and Julia Carpenter who eventually inherits the power. Considering the casting, many are speculating we’ll see Carpenter (who is also known as the second Spider-Woman and an Avenger).
Madame Web stars Dakota Johnson as the titular character, and Roberts joins Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria, The Handmaid’s Tale, Sharp Objects), Celeste O’Connor (Selah and the Spades, Ghostbusters: Afterlife), Isabela Merced (Dora and the Lost City of Gold, Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Transformers: The Last Knight) and Tahar Rahim (The Mauritanian).
S.J. Clarkson (The Defenders, Jessica Jones, Life on Mars) is directing the film and the screenplay by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (both credited with Morbius, Power Rangers, Gods of Egypt, The Last Witch Hunter). Deadline notes that Kerem Sanga (The Violent Heart, First Girl I Loved) is credited for work on a previous draft of the screenplay.
Madame Web is set to hit theaters (for now) on July 7, 2023.
