‘Kraven the Hunter’ Trailer: Aaron Taylor-Johnson Is Out for Blood

Aug 14

From Ryan Cordaro

I know that this is a statement that’s been going around for a few years now, but why is Sony doing this? Why is Sony continuing to make these Spider-Man-less Spider-Man movies with characters from the hero’s lineup of villains? The simple answer could very easily be money, but I’m going to try to make an answer out of it, even if it boils down to delusion. Outside of the animated Spider-Verse movies, the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Movies, or SPUMM if you want to keep it classy, remind me of a bygone era of comic book movies. Movies like Venom and its sequel, Morbius, and Madame Web feel like throwbacks to what comic book movies were in the mid-2000s: cheesy, sort of dorky action movies that accomplished what they were trying to do, entertain. Sure, we’ve gotten some diamonds in the rough like the X-Men movies, but we also have Halle Berry’s Catwoman movie and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. These SPUMM movies have been in that same category to me: the “so bad it’s good” territory. The next entry, Kraven the Hunter, looks to keep filling in this void.

I have to be specific in saying that Sony describes the character of Kraven the Hunter as one of “Marvel's most iconic villains” and this movie is his “visceral, action-packed origin story.” While I think Kraven is an iconic Spider-Man villain could be true, he’s not necessarily the first Marvel villain I think of. There’s not a bunch of plot details out there right now, like with most Marvel movies, but a core component of the movie is his complex relationship with his father, who’s the one that starts him down the path of vengeance and leads him to become one of the most feared hunters alive. If I’m being completely honest, I don’t even think this looks too bad, at least coming after Madame Web. The R-rating with all that gory violence could bring a bigger fun factor than movies like Morbius, but I’m down to be pleasantly surprised by Kraven.

Kraven stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson (The Fall Guy, the upcoming Nosferatu), Ariana DeBose (Argylle, West Side Story), Fred Hechinger (Thelma, the upcoming Gladiator II), Alessandro Nivola (The Many Saints of Newark, The Big Cigar), Christopher Abbott (Poor Things, the upcoming Wolf Man), and Russell Crowe (Gladiator, The Exorcism).