So far, the Marvel movies have given us an interesting plethora of Spider-Man villains. However, one member of the webslinger’s rogues gallery who has never appeared in any superhero movies (despite plenty of demand) is Kraven the Hunter, but that will all change when Sony’s upcoming solo movie featuring the ruthless predator as the lead character comes out.
So, when exactly will that be on the upcoming 2024 movies schedule? That is the first detail we will reveal in the following breakdown of the most essential facts we know so far about the Kraven the Hunter movie.
What Is The Kraven The Hunter Release Date?
Currently, Kraven the Hunter is set to open on August 30, 2024. It was previously set for an October 2023 release before being delayed in lieu of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, around the same time another anticipated Marvel title (Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse) was removed from Sony's schedule. Instead of making his feature-film debut in a supporting role in a Peter Parker-led adventure, the movie will see the title character capturing the spotlight for himself in his own upcoming solo movie, which was first given the green light in 2018.
Kraven’s maiden voyage to the big screen had been a hot topic a while before this film got the greenlight. In 2014, director Marc Webb confirmed that one of the character’s spears can be seen in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as a tease for his appearances in the Sinister Six movie and The Amazing Spider-Man 3 before both projects were canceled. Ryan Coogler would later reveal he had plans to put the villain in 2018’s Black Panther (that didn’t come to pass) and Jon Watts (director of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies) has expressed that he wishes he could have given Kraven a spot in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
FIRST TRAILER TEASES KRAVEN’S ORIGINS, R-RATED VIOLENCE
A sizzle reel for Kraven the Hunter was exclusively shown at CinemaCon 2023 in Las Vegas. Months later, fans were treated to the release of the first official trailer, which is supposedly similar to the sizzle reel, based on its graphic content. Check out the blood red, red band clip below:
The clip teases Sergei’s rough relationship with his father, shows Taylor-Johnson mercilessly mowing down human adversaries, and hints at Alessandro Nivola’s Rhino, whose namesake is apparently the result of a strange genetic mutation. Unique to this publicly released clip is Sergei’s interaction with his brother (pre-Chameleon, apparently) and Calypso, as well as a supposed tease at his relationship with Spider-Man with a shot of him lying on the ground, surrounded by arachnids hanging from strands of web. The trailer also explains how a drop of a lion’s blood made him into an animalistic warrior, but left fans with one baffling question: what happened to Kraven’s Russian accent?
AARON TAYLOR-JOHNSON LEADS THE KRAVEN THE HUNTER CAST
The Kraven the Hunter cast includes a few people making their comic book movie debuts, as well as one who already has a few superhero roles under his belt and another who can say he has made the transition from DC actor to Marvel actor, too. Let’s go through all of them below, starting with our eponymous character.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Sergei Kravinoff)
After making his comic book movie debut as the titular hero of 2010’s Kick-Ass (opposite future Quicksilver actor Evan Peters), Aaron Taylor-Johnson was cast in Avengers: Age of Ultron as the MCU’s iteration of Quicksilver, coincidentally. Until the film’s first trailer came out, we assumed the actor would have to dust off that "Sokovian" accent when he was cast as the Russian-born Kraven the Hunter (whose real name is Sergei Kravinoff) in the upcoming solo movie.
Fred Hechinger (Dmitri Nikolaievich Smerdyakov)
Starring as Kraven's half-brother, Dmitri Nikolaievich Smerdyakov (also called the Chameleon), is Fred Hechinger. The actor is known for his scene-stealing roles in HBO’s The White Lotus Season 1 cast and in the Fear Street movies cast for Netflix.
Ariana DeBose (Calypso)
Kraven’s occasional partner in crime and romance, Calypso, is played by Ariana DeBose, who made history as the first openly gay woman to win an acting Oscar for her supporting role in 2021’s West Side Story. The theater-trained actor – who was part of the ensemble in Hamilton on Broadway – became an action star in early 2024 with her role in I.S.S. and also became a Disney Princess at the end of the previous year as the lead of Wish.
Christopher Abbott (The Foreigner)
Kraven’s main adversary in the film, The Foreigner, is played by Christopher Abbott, who has never really played a “bad guy” before, but has played a few ordinary people driven to dark places. For instance, his recurring role in HBO’s Girls as Charlie Dattolo, his character in the post-apocalyptic A24 horror movie, It Comes at Night, and his role as a man who becomes a host to a futuristic assassin in Possessor – the role that best proves he may have what it takes to be a comic book villain.
Alessandro Nivola (Rhino)
As revealed at CinemaCon 2023, a fresh take on a classic Spider-Man rogue known as Rhino is being portrayed by Alessandro Nivola – an actor with a few baddies on his resume. He was Nicolas Cage’s younger brother in Face/Off, a Mafia-affiliate in A Most Violent Year, and Rachel McAdams’ controlling husband in Disobedience.
Russell Crowe (Sergei Kravinoff’s Father)
Kraven’s father marks the third comic book movie role (and role of a comic book character’s dad) for Russell Crowe. The Australian Academy Award winner previously played Jor-El (whose son, Kal-El, becomes Superman) in Man of Steel and later appeared as Zeus in Thor: Love and Thunder, which ended with the introduction of Brett Goldstein as Hercules.
Levi Miller (Young Sergei Kravinoff)
In April 2022, Deadline reported that Levi Miller of A Wrinkle in Time fame was added to the cast in an undisclosed role, but he appears to be playing a young Sergei, based on his appearance in the trailer. One of the young Australian actor’s earlier best-known roles is another “younger” version of a prominent literary figure – the title hero of Joe Wright’s 2015 Peter Pan prequel, Pan.
Kraven The Hunter Is Expected To Get An R Rating
In more recent years, the only R-rated superhero movies adapted from Marvel Comics have been under the Fox umbrella (before the Disney/Fox merger went into effect) – namely the Deadpool movies and 2017’s Logan. Well, it looks like that is very likely going to change when the Sony-produced Kraven the Hunter hits theaters.
The graphic nature of the movie’s trailer serves as a good enough indication that the MPA is gonna have some notes. However, according to Taylor-Johnson, any such notes for Kraven the Hunter are not only expected, but welcomed. Deadline reported that, before presenting the sizzle reel at CinemaCon, the actor quipped, “Will it be rated R? Fuck yes, it’s going to be rated R.”
Triple Frontier's J.C. Chandor Is Directing The Kraven The Hunter Movie
In 2020, Academy Award nominee J.C. Chandor was chosen to helm Kraven the Hunter, following his success as the director of 2012’s Margin Call, the aforementioned A Most Violent Year from 2014, and Netflix’s Triple Frontier. Antoine Fuqua was previously considered to direct, at which point a script was already in the works by Richard Wenk. When Chandor signed on, screenwriting duties were passed on to Matt Holloway and Art Marcum, who have contributed to screenplays for blockbusters like Iron Man, Transformers: The Last Knight, Men in Black: International, and Uncharted.
Sharing producing credits for the Kraven the Hunter movie are Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach – both of whom also have experience with the webslinger that goes back pretty far. Arad was an executive producer on Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, as well as Spider-Man: The Animated Series, and two of Tolmach’s first big gigs were the Amazing Spider-Man movies. Both gentlemen also produced the 2022 release of Morbius, which starred Jared Leto as the titular vampiric anti-hero whose first appearance in the Marvel Universe was in a Spider-Man comic.
How will Taylor-Johnson handle playing a villain this time? What could Chandor bring to the material that we have not seen in a comic book movie before? Is there still a chance that Kraven will come face-to-face with Spider-Man like Richard Wenk once promised? Hopefully, all of this will be revealed when Kraven the Hunter hits theaters.
