New Kraven the Hunter Trailer Brings the Pain

Movies

Is Sony’s Spidey-less Spider-Verse going out with a bang? Probably not, but they definitely want you to think so. While Venom: The Last Dance seems like the best way to end this side experiment, there’s one more movie about a Spider-Man villain that will arrive after the Lethal Protector’s last outing: Kraven the Hunter. Based on the chemically altered big game hunter whose favorite sport is tracking everybody’s favorite arachnid-powered superhero, Kraven the Hunter stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Sergei Kravinoff, who gets animal-like abilities from lion’s blood (a change from the comics, where his powers come from a serum) and fights criminals, presumably including his crime lord father, played by Russell Crowe (who probably would’ve made a good Kraven back in the day). Ariana DeBose, Alessandro Nivola, Fred Hechinger, and Christopher Abbott also star. Directed by J.C. Chandor and written by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway, Kraven the Hunter will stalk its way into theaters on December 13, 2024, and you can see the trailer below:

Sony is certainly trying to make Kraven the Hunter look cool. They’ve got lots of bloody violence, a Johnny Cash song, and Russell Crowe to up the badass quotient. I wonder if Deadpool & Wolverine’s massive success motivated Sony to make this trailer so violent. I wouldn’t be surprised, as every studio with movies even semi-related to superheroes is going to try to capitalize on the first one since Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 that people actually like. And let’s be real; Kraven is a tough sell. He’s a popular Spider-Man villain among comic book fans, but he’s not a recognizable name, he doesn’t have an eye-catching costume beyond the pelt he wears, and the whole idea behind his solo film is that it leads to him being a villain. There’s also the general conception that this Spider-Verse Sony attempted is on its way out, with the Venom series experiencing diminishing returns even with the addition of Woody Harrelson as Carnage and Madame Web being an unmitigated disaster. Much like Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Kraven the Hunter feels like a studio serving up the last of its leftovers.

That doesn’t mean it’ll be a bad movie, although I’m not overly impressed so far. The only film of director J.C. Chandor’s I’ve seen is Margin Call, which I thought was okay. On the writing side of things, however, Richard Wenk wrote the excellent Equalizer movies with Denzel Washington and the underrated 16 Blocks with Bruce Willis, and he co-wrote Expendables 2 and The Mechanic (the Jason Statham remake); that’s a very nice résumé. Art Marcum and Matt Holloway are more of a mixed bag; they co-wrote Iron Man and Punisher: War Zone, but they also wrote Men in Black: International and Uncharted. I didn’t see Uncharted, although it looked pretty bad, but Men in Black: International was awful. Still, that’s not the worst creative team ever assembled, and it looks like Kraven the Hunter will be plenty violent, embracing its R rating. It’s also got a few other Spider-Man villains thrown in for good measure, with Ariana Debose playing Calypso, Fred Henchinger playing the Chameleon (Spidey’s first supervillain!), and Alessandro Nivola as the Rhino. This Rhino looks like a deviation from the comics as well, with him appearing to be a sort of mutation as opposed to a guy in a super suit; I see people angry on social media, and I agree that it would be cool to see a more comics-accurate Rhino, but at least it’s not that stupid Transformer from The Amazing Spider-Man 2. And it feels like a waste to throw all these characters into Kraven the Hunter instead of allowing Tom Holland to face off with them in a Spider-Man movie. Superhero cinema is such a mess right now; for the moment, all we can hope for is something entertaining enough in the moment.

Let us know what you think of the Kraven the Hunter trailer in the comments!