Starring in a box-office flop was actually a smart career move for Sydney Sweeney
Sydney Sweeney's career remains on an upward trajectory, despite the poor box-office performance of "Madame Web."
Sweeney said joining the Marvel movie was a strategic decision to form a relationship at Sony.
It led to her box-office hit at the studio, "Anyone but You," and starring in the upcoming "Barbarella" reboot.
Not even a colossal box-office bomb like "Madame Web" is going to derail Sydney Sweeney's hot streak. In fact, the way she sees it, being cast in Sony's latest Marvel release is what led to her recent ascension up Hollywood's ranks.
From the outside, it seemed like Sweeney was already playing with house money when "Madame Web" opened in mid-February to low numbers (it's only made $97 million worldwide to date) and disastrous reviews. No matter — she was still riding high off box-office sensation "Anyone but You," the rom-com she stars in opposite Glen Powell, which premiered two months earlier.
That, coupled with the fact that Dakota Johnson was the face of the film as its title character, helped Sweeney emerge relatively unscathed, allowing her to keep her current momentum.
But pulling back the curtain, the reality is that we wouldn't be gushing over Sweeney so much lately if it weren't for "Madame Web."
The star revealed to GQ UK in a recent profile that she had some ulterior motives for signing onto the movie, in which she plays a teen who one day will be a Spider-Woman.
"To me that film was a building block, it's what allowed me to build a relationship with Sony," she said. "Without doing 'Madame Web' I wouldn't have a relationship with the decision-makers over there. Everything in my career I do not just for that story, but strategic business decisions. Because I did that, I was able to sell 'Anyone but You.' I was able to get 'Barbarella.'"
This points out two things audiences should know. One: Just because a movie came out recently, doesn't mean it was made recently. "Madame Web" was made over two years ago, and in that time of lengthy post-production (and a few release date changes), Sweeney was able to get "Anyone but You" — which she executive produced — made and released at Sony before "Web" hit screens.
And two: Sydney Sweeney knows how to play the Hollywood game.
"She's very smart, she's very smart," Powell told Business Insider about her costar before "Anyone but You" opened.
"Sydney is one of the few people I have worked with who is so impressive in front of the camera and behind the camera," he continued. "She has such an impressive sense of marketing, story, what is new and fresh and cool. She's an impressive person."
And Sweeney is showing no signs of slowing down. Her new horror movie, "Immaculate," is out this week, and soon she'll be shooting season 3 of "Euphoria." She's also figuring out the next rom-com to make with Powell.
While Sweeney may not have had the foresight to see "Madame Web" bombing, she was savvy enough to understand that if she could get in good with a studio on one of their tentpoles, she could build an alliance that could help her fund her passion projects down the line. Now, she's proven she can revive a thought-to-be-dead genre like the romantic comedy, and she'll move on at Sony to reboot the classic Jane Fonda sci-fi movie "Barbarella."
That's time well spent on "relationship building."
Read the original article on Business Insider