Dakota Johnson thinks Hollywood is a bleak arena where streaming execs don’t trust creative people

Last Updated on March 5, 2024

Dakota Johnson is giving audiences something to chew on about Hollywood’s inner workings when she’s not in the Amazon researching spiders with her mom. Speaking with L’Officiel, the Madame Web star got candid about the challenges of movie making and how executives could be stifling creative minds in the streaming arena. Last year, Johnson’s experience with her film Daddio opened her eyes to several problems plaguing the film industry. The film, which also stars Sean Penn, encountered several challenges during production, highlighting the uphill battle of selling a “riskier” idea to studios.

“We made a movie called ‘Daddio ‘that was sold at Telluride to Sony Classics, which was amazing, but it took a lot of fighting to get that made,” Johnson said. “People are just so afraid, and I’m like, ‘Why? What’s going to happen if you do something brave?’ It just feels like nobody knows what to do and everyone’s afraid. That’s what it feels like. Everyone who makes decisions is afraid. They want to do the safe thing and the safe thing is really boring.”

Unafraid to mention the elephant in the room, Johnson added that she’s “discovering that it’s really f*cking bleak in this industry. It is majorly disheartening.”

“The people who run streaming platforms don’t trust creative people or artists to know what’s going to work, and that is just going to make us implode,” she continued. “It’s really heartbreaking. It’s just f*cking so hard. It’s so hard to get anything made. All of the stuff I’m interested in making is really different, and it’s unique and it’s very forward in whatever it is.”

Speaking of risk, Dakota Johnson’s Marvel movie Madame Web spins a web in theaters on Valentine’s Day, and audiences are already nervous about Sony’s latest chapter of the studio’s expanding Spider-Verse. After Sony and Marvel’s Morbius left red in Sony’s ledger, fans of superhero cinema are less inclined to give the live-action Spider-Verse the benefit of the doubt. However, Dakota Johnson says some aspects of the film have made her feel confident about the project.

“When the script came along, I loved the idea of a superhero being a young woman whose mind was extremely powerful. I liked the dynamic between her and these three young women; how they genuinely protect and support and care for each other,” Johnson said about taking the lead in Sony and Marvel’s Madame Web. “And so, it just seemed different to me and it was way more grounded and real and gritty. I just thought it was an interesting way to experience that world.”

“In a switch from the typical genre, Madame Web tells the standalone origin story of one of Marvel publishing’s most enigmatic heroines. The suspense-driven thriller stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, a paramedic in Manhattan who may have clairvoyant abilities. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she forges a relationship with three young women destined for powerful futures… if they can all survive a deadly present.”

Madame Web features Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, Isabela Merced as Anya Corazon, Emma Roberts as Mary Parker, and Adam Scott as Ben Parker. Zosia Mamet, Jill Hennessy, Tahar Rahim, Celeste O’Connor, and Mike Epps star as primary cast members.

Do you agree with Dakota Johnson’s assessment of Hollywood? Would you like to see studios take more risks to create original entertainment? Let us know in the comments below.