Now that VENOM is a bonafide hit Sony can have the confidence to keep the ball rolling with their own universe of films set around characters in the Spider-Man universe. The iconic web slinger has been loaned out to the Marvel universe for their series of movies, making it a tad difficult for Sony to include him, but the screenwriter for the upcoming Kraven the Hunter movie, Richard Wenk, says he intends on having his title character coming “face to face” with his wall-crawling nemesis.
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Wenk was speaking with Discussing Film (via /Film) recently when he talked about the early stages of writing for the movie. The Venom movie was not able to get Spider-Man to do a swing-by (despite what countless rumors claimed), but Wenk said his early draft will see the both Kraven and Spidey having an encounter.
“I’m just starting it. It’s an interesting world. A great character. It’s going to adhere very closely to the lore of Kraven the Hunter. And he is going to come face to face with Spider-Man. I’m just beginning it, beginning the process, and because it’s a big IP, Marvel world, there’s lots of hurdles to overcome before you can start writing, to crack the right story and to get the right tone. It’s a new world for me. But what’s nice about it is it’s a very grounded character, he doesn’t have a lot of crazy superpowers and things like that so he’s more grounded and that fits what I like to do. That’s as much as I know.”
When pressed by the interviewer about any particular arcs they might draw from Wenk said that they're mostly looking at the “Kraven’s Last Hunt” angle from the comics. The arc is one of the most renowned in the Spidey canon and finds Kraven/Sergei Kravinoff defeating Spider-Man, with the famous image of Spider-Man covered in mud near his own grave. Obviously, this will need to include Spider-Man as he is, you know, quite important to that storyline. Now, there's no telling if this idea of Wenk's will make it into the final draft, as there are some even bigger hurdles facing it than he may think.
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Whatever Sony has planned for these movies better begin to make sense, as creating this whole universe without the lynchpin that holds it together, Spider-Man, seems like a plan destined to fail. But perhaps we’re looking at this all wrong. Maybe in having Venom kick things off, they intend to have him play the more prominent role in the absence of Spider-Man. Given that a Kraven movie has little purpose without Spidey, as he’s far from a top-tier character, maybe Sony intends to have Venom play a big part in his movie, with Kraven hunting him instead. Who knows, maybe Spider-Man's loan period with the MCU has a specific time limit…
VENOM is in theaters now.