Sony’s Marvel Comics adaptation Kraven the Hunter is set to reach theatres on December 13th. This movie is, along with Morbius, Madame Web, and the Venom trilogy, part of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (which was formerly known as the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters), which consists of Marvel adaptations that doesn’t have the creative team of Marvel Studios behind them, so therefore they’re not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sony is able to make these films because they own the movie rights to all characters that were originally introduced in the pages of Spider-Man comics. The financial success of the Venom movies aside (and that trilogy has had diminishing returns), these movies haven’t tended to go over well with movie-goers, something which Kraven director J. C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year) has had to address, asking that people give his movie the chance to wash away the bad taste left by Morbius and Madame Web. As noted by The Wrap, Sony’s surprise panel for Kraven the Hunter played to a half-empty room at Brazil’s Comic Con Experience, and the studio has decided to release the film on a thousand less screens than Venom: The Last Dance. It’s becoming clear that Sony is losing confidence in their Spider-Man Universe, now considered a “failed experiment.” That’s why, according to The Wrap, Sony has decided that Kraven the Hunter will be the last film in this Spider-Man Universe. For now, anyway.
As The Wrap reports, For Sony, the future appears to lie in projects more directly connected to Spider-Man himself. A source informed that them Sony has “developed what they want to develop for now. It’s really about the next Spider-Man film.” According to a second Sony insider, the studio is now focusing its efforts on [Tom] Holland’s highly anticipated fourth Spider-Man film, the next installment in the acclaimed Spider-Verse animated film series with Beyond the Spider-Verse, and a Spider-Noir television series featuring Nicolas Cage — projects that lean into, rather than away from, the web-slinger’s central appeal.
Directed by Chandor from a screenplay by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway, Kraven the Hunter is the action-packed, R-rated, standalone story of how one of Marvel’s most iconic villains came to be. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Kraven, a man whose complex relationship with his ruthless gangster father, Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe), starts him down a path of vengeance with brutal consequences, motivating him to become not only the greatest hunter in the world, but also one of its most feared.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars as the title character and is joined in the cast by Ariana DeBose as voodoo priestess Calypso Ezili, Fred Hechinger as Kraven’s estranged brother and master of disguise Dmitri Smerdyakov / Chameleon, Alessandro Nivola as Russian mercenary and human-rhino hybrid Aleksei Sytsevich / Rhino, Christopher Abbott as a mercenary and assassin known as the Foreigner, and Russell Crowe as Kraven’s estranged father, the ruthless crime lord Nikolai Kravinoff.
Taylor-Johnson, who is rumored to be in the running to play James Bond, recently recommended the film to fans of the Bond franchise as well.
What do you think of Sony putting their Spider-Man Universe on hold after Kraven the Hunter, focusing only on projects that feature Spider-Man himself (or versions of the character)? Let us know by leaving a comment below.