Madame Web's ending sets up the Spider-Man universe at Sony, but the tease might be all we get after the movie's box office failure.
The movie tells the origin story of Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson) as well as bringing three new Spider-Women to the screen too: Julia (Sydney Sweeney), Anya (Isabela Merced) and Mattie (Celeste O'Connor).
This might be the one and only time we see any of them, but let's delve into Madame Web's ending to explain how it sets up their future – if we do get to see them again in another Spider-Man spin-off.
Major spoilers ahead.
Is Spider-Man in Madame Web?
Before delving into the ending, let's first clarify one of the fans' biggest questions about this movie – is Spider-Man in Madame Web?
The answer is yes... kind of.
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As it was heavily rumoured online, Adam Scott plays Ben Parker, aka Uncle Ben. He works as a paramedic with Cassandra. We also meet his sister, Mary Parker (Emma Roberts), who is pregnant.
The child she is expecting is Peter Parker, who will eventually become Spider-Man, and the baby is born at the end of the movie. He's never explicitly named, but it's pretty obvious that this is Peter Parker.
We don't know exactly which version of Peter Parker this is, but the year suggests it's Tom Holland's current version. The choice of setting the movie in 2003 wasn't to do with this though, and was more to do with making it Cassandra's story.
"I think what it relates to is really back in the 1970s when her mom was around, and it goes back to her inception story. So this is very much her story," director SJ Clarkson told IGN.
Madame Web ending explained
Now, to the ending of Madame Web.
After running for their lives for days, Cassandra leaves Julia, Anya and Mattie in the care of Ben Parker and her pregnant sister Mary while she finds answers in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest.
As she found out earlier in the movie, Ezequiel was in the Amazon with her mom Constance "when she was researching spiders right before she died." Desperate to get hold of a unique spider with special powers, Ezequiel shot Cassandra's mother while she was pregnant and stole the spider.
The Arañas, a group of super-powered people from the Amazon, try to save Constance by injecting the powers of the spider into her. However, despite their best efforts, only baby Cassandra survives.
Before going back to the US, Cassandra is left with an insightful sentence: "The moment you take on the responsibility, great power will come." Not quite "With great power comes great responsibility," but close enough.
Back in the city, Mary's waters break, so Ben and the girls rush to the hospital.
By leaving the house, they get exposed to the city's cameras, which means Ezequiel's tech-savvy accomplice Amaria (Zosia Mamet) is able to quickly track them and send the villain their way.
Cassandra gets to the Parkers' house and finds they are missing. A vision shows her they are in danger, so she steals an ambulance and goes after them. By the time she gets there, Ezequiel has created a traffic disruption in the middle of the city in order to get to the teenagers, but Cassandra flies off a car park and crashes the ambulance into him.
Leaving Ben and Mary behind on their way to the hospital, Cassandra, Julia, Anya and Mattie try to escape Ezequiel, who is not deterred at all by being run off by an ambulance.
They run to an abandoned warehouse as Cassandra gets acquainted with her powers and all its possibilities. Through her clairvoyance, Cassandra creates an escape plan, distracting Ezequiel with numerous explosions while they are rescued by a helicopter.
Ezequiel is too fast and lethal, however, and quickly catches up with them.
At that critical moment, when they are out of options, Cassandra has to understand she can also be lethal.
She embraces her power, splitting into four versions of herself in order to save Julia, Anya and Mattie from their respective precarious situations while also facing Ezequiel in front of her.
"The girls were never your future. I was," she tells Ezequiel, using her knowledge of the future to place him exactly in the way of the crumbling light sign they are currently fighting on.
She defeats him, but the light sign collapses, dragging Cassandra with it into the water. As she drowns, a piece of sign hurts her eyes.
She is rescued by the girls, but not quickly enough — she is not breathing. Julia, Anya and Mattie join forces to do CPR on her, as Cassandra taught them earlier in the movie. It works. Knowing how to properly do CPR saves lives, kids.
At the hospital, Mary has given birth and Cassandra is also alive and well, although she is now permanently blind thanks to her eye injuries.
Julia, Anya and Mattie keep her company in the hospital room. When the nurse tells the girls that only family is allowed, Cassie says: "They're mine."
Some time afterwards, Cassandra is back at her place, now in a wheelchair and wearing sunglasses. This look brings her closer to her comic origins. She is also more confident in her abilities.
"I can see better than I ever have," she says, as she shows off her clairvoyant abilities.
In the background, we hear Cassandra reflecting on the three young women in front of her. "I can see you standing up for what you believe. Never giving up," she says.
After all, they are now starting their journey into becoming three different versions of Spider-Woman – Martha 'Mattie' Franklin, Anya Corazón and Julia Carpenter.
In the last moments of the movie, we get a brief glimpse at the future. They are wearing their superhero suits (which we already saw in Ezequiel's death vision) next to Cassandra, who debuts her own red suit as well.
"Whatever the future holds, we'll be ready," she concludes.
Madame Web is out now in cinemas.
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Mireia (she/her) has been working as a movie and TV journalist for over eight years. Based in the UK, she is a former deputy movies editor at Digital Spy, and previously worked for the Spanish magazine Fotogramas. Mireia's work has been published in other outlets such as Esquire and Elle in Spain, and WeLoveCinema and GamesRadar+ in the UK. She is also a published author, having written the essay Biblioteca Studio Ghibli: Nicky, la aprendiz de bruja about Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service.
During her years as a freelance journalist and film critic, Mireia has covered festivals around the world and has interviewed high-profile talents such as Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal and many more. She's also taken part in juries such as the FIPRESCI jury at Venice Film Festival and the short film jury at Kingston International Film Festival in London. LinkedIn
