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Kraven the Hunter: Sony’s Spider-Man Spinoff Reveals First Look at CinemaCon
The hunt is over for the first look at Kraven the Hunter. Sony Pictures debuted the first official look at the Spider-Man Universe spin-off during the studio’s presentation at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Monday night, revealing Bullet Train‘s Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the world’s greatest hunter: Sergei Kravinoff. ComicBook was in attendance for the exclusive sneak peek at the upcoming chapter in the SSU, in theaters October 6th, joining Sony’s web of Marvel Comics adaptations Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Morbius, and 2024 releases El Muerto and Madame Web. While the trailer will not be released to the public until the summer, you can check out an exclusive description of the footage below.
“Next up is Kraven the Hunter. Aaron Taylor-Johnson sends a video message. “Even from afar, I still get the privilege of introducing the first ever footage of Kraven the Hunter shown anywhere,” Johnson said. “A Marvel movie grounded heavily in the real world…He is a fierce hunter. He confirms it is rated R before the first footage plays. He confirms the film will be rated R before footage furthers the point. In the footage, brutal Kraven slaughters men in a truck, including biting chunks of their faces off and tossing them out of his mouth towards the camera. He pulls hjs classic lion costume out, showing its mane. He fights many man, slaughtering them in a bloody series of events. In the woods, men look for Kraven and set traps, but Kraven uses the locale to his advantage and wrecks them. In the film, Kraven seems to be setting out to be nothing like his father, uses spears to kill men, slaughters another in an office with a crossbow, and moves like an animal through hallways – sometimes on all fours. It’s a bloody romp, loaded with a couple of f-bombs. The Rhino is the villain of the film, with a tease showing a man’s arm transforming into the character. The trailer will be released this summer.”
J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year, Triple Frontier) is directing the film written by Richard Wenk (The Equalizer 3) and duo Art Marcum & Matt Holloway (Marvel Studios’ Iron Man, Sony’s Uncharted), based on the Marvel character created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1964’s Amazing Spider-Man #15.
Along with Taylor-Johnson, the Kraven cast includes Oscar winner Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) as the spell-binding priestess Calypso and Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus) as Dmitri Smerdyakov, Sergei’s half-brother and a master of disguise known as the Chameleon. Rounding out the cast are Christopher Abbott (A Most Violent Year), Alessandro Nivola (Boston Strangler), Levi Miller (A Wrinkle in Time), and Best Actor Oscar winner Russell Crowe (Gladiator).
In the comics, Kraven is a master hunter obsessed with defeating his archenemy the Spider — the wall-crawling superhero Spider-Man — pursuing his prey with herbal potions that grant him superhuman strength, speed, and stamina. Taylor-Johnson has described his Kraven as a “protector of the natural world” and a “conservationist.”
“He is a hunter and from that world of hunting and there’s so many aspects [to him]. What I love about that character is that he has flaws,” the actor told ComicBook. “Kraven is a beautiful character. Sergei Kravinov is a beautiful character because it’s someone who’s really understanding themselves and has flaws. This is a character that was built ages ago and it’s in a new time and era, but yeah, is he going to be the hunter that we all want to see? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.”
Sony’s Kraven the Hunter opens only in theaters October 6th. See all the latest news out of CinemaCon 2023.
