When does ‘Madame Web’ take place?

We regret to inform you that Sony Pictures is at it again. Hot on the heels of Morbius will follow Kraven and Madame Web, continuing the studio’s questionable tactic of releasing Spider-Man movies without Spider-Man.

The first Madame Web trailer put the next release in the franchise on the map and teased the premise of a group of young women being stalked by some kind of evil Spider-Man. More on who these characters are and their comic book origins here, but there’s one interesting question that needs answering: in what year Madame Web is set?

There are several clues out there, so let’s get digging.

What year is Madame Web set in?

We’ve known for a while that Madame Web would take place in the “early 2000s,” as reports from the film’s Boston location shoot confirmed several retro elements. But which year in the early 2000s?

One telling bit of set decoration is an ad for Beyonce’s debut album Dangerously in Love, which dropped in June 2003. If we can presume that promotion would have begun before the album was released and that the ad may have remained up for some time afterwards, we’re looking at May 2003 at the earliest.

I will also bow to the knowledge of this guy who assures us that the Calvin Klein ad indicates a 2003 setting.

However, in the subway scene, we also see a commuter with a PlayStation Portable in hand.

The PlayStation Portable was released in North America on Mar. 24, 2005, though arrived in Japan on Dec. 12, 2004. We could assume this guy is a particularly avid PlayStation fan and imported his console, placing this scene as early as late 2004, though it has to be said the rest of the exterior shots don’t look like a New York winter.

Right now the appearance of the PlayStation Portable looks like an anachronism, though perhaps someone at Sony couldn’t resist sneaking in a nod to the company’s debut portable gaming system.

What does Madame Web‘s time frame signify?

The brief shot of a baby in the trailer has led some to theorize that this is the newborn Peter Parker. If so, which one? Sony’s Spider-Man Universe is theoretically linked to the Tom Holland MCU Spider-Man, though he was 15 in Spider-Man: Homecoming, set in the first half of 2016. This means that Tom Holland’s Peter Parker must have been born in 2001, which would seem to rule out his birth occurring during a movie set in 2003.

However, this may be a flashback scene set in 2001 and the bulk of the story will be set in 2003. Additionally, it’s worth underlining that, as per Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s Tom Hardy-starring credits scene, we know the MCU and Sony’s Spider-Verse are related but not one and the same, meaning Madame Web could be showing us the earliest days of a Spider-Man we’ve never seen on screen.

So, if we had to pin down a year we’ll say 2003, and we’ll just ignore that the PlayStation Portable wasn’t out at that point.

Confused? Well, Madame Web will swing into theaters on Feb. 14 2024 so expect answers soon enough.