Dakota Johnson says Hollywood is ‘a bit of a mess’

Actor said industry is too full of decision-makers ‘who don’t even really watch movies’

Dakota Johnson has described contemporary Hollywood as “a mess”.

The 35-year-old actor, who’s currently promoting her A24 romcom The Materialists, made the comments on Sean Evans’s show Hot Ones.

When he asked her why Hollywood is risk-averse, she said: “I think it’s hard when creative decisions are made by committee, and by people who don’t even really watch movies or know anything about them, and that tends to be what’s occurring a lot.”

She added that there are too many remakes in the film industry at the moment, saying: “When something does well, studios want to keep that going so they remake the same things, but humans don’t want that.

“They want fresh, they want to feel new things, experience new things, see new things, so I don’t know, I guess it’s all just a bit of a mess right now, isn’t it?”

The star has previously called out people in the industry who “don’t have a creative bone in their body” when discussing her 2024 box office flop Madame Web, a comic book movie in which she played a superpowered paramedic.

She told the Los Angeles Times: “I think unfortunately with Madame Web, it started out as something and turned into something else. And I was just sort of along for the ride at that point. But that happens. Bigger budget movies fail all the time.”

Johnson revealed earlier this month that after she won the Golden Raspberry Award (Razzie) for Worst Actress, for her role in Madame Web, she received a kind text from a fellow movie star: Sandra Bullock.

She said that after the February event, she got a message from Bullock, who previously won two Razzies in 2010 for the film All About Steve – one for Worst Actress and one for Worst Couple, alongside Bradley Cooper.

“Sandra Bullock sent me a voice note, being like, ‘I heard you are in the Razzie Club and we should have brunch. We should have like a monthly brunch,’” Johnson explained.

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“But I freaked out getting this message from her because she’s so iconic to me, as a movie star,” she added. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, it was just crazy.’”

In her new film Materialists, which has received more positive reviews and is directed by Past Lives filmmaker Celine Song, Johnson plays a professional matchmaker called Lucy, who ends up caught in a love triangle with Pedro Pascal’s Harry and Chris Evans’s John.