Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Russell Crowe will feature in Sony’s Kraven the Hunter, but the most important character of the Sony universe film is still yet to be cast: Spider-Man. Taylor-Johnson will be playing the titular role, a big game hunter who is otherwise known as Sergei Kravinoff. Kraven first appeared in a 1964 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man as an adversary to the web-slinger, and while Taylor-Johnson’s haunting performance as Ray Marcus in Nocturnal Animals promises a scintillating display, a cinematic depiction of the Marvel Comics character will surely not be as interesting without the maniacal hunter’s greatest prey.
Kraven’s complicated perceptions of honor and respect distinguish him from many supervillains, and the decision to portray him as the central figure represents a continuing practice in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe of exploring antiheroes, whose background and motivations are often more complex and intricate than superheroes. Kraven the Hunter is set to follow Venom and soon-to-be-released Morbius in depicting villainous characters as the focal point of superhero genre films. Truthfully, despite the basis of Sony’s villain spin-offs on enemies of Spider-Man, his relevance to their storylines is so far negligible.
Kraven’s desire to prove himself as the undisputed best hunter, and his fixation on an ever-resourceful Spider-Man, however, mean that his portrayal will prove a difficult concept without Spidey’s inclusion in the film. While Kraven the Hunter could devise an origin story for Kravinoff, it is a character that may seem insufferably cruel, and a project that could prove excessively cynical. Though supernaturally enhanced, Kraven’s abilities – brutal physicality and tactical prowess – are not extensively detached from human faculties. The glamour and occult of Spider-Man would not only ensure that the Kraven movie adheres to a superhero genre, but it would provide a type of hunt for the character that is suitably enthralling.
Spider-Man is a difficult character to exclude from Kraven, but complications remain concerning which iteration of Spider-Man could be cast. A faint image of Kraven’s likeness is visible in Spider-Man: No Way Home as the sky fractures and exposes the multiverse. This suggests Kraven does not naturally inhabit that universe, and Tom Holland’s MCU Spidey is therefore unlikely to feature at this stage. The prospect of his inclusion is in fact further complicated by Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s portrayal of Pietro Maximoff (Quicksilver) in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Russell Crowe’s casting as Zeus in Thor: Love and Thunder, risking perceived disruption to the MCU’s continuity.
The multiverse as a concept would be a strange complication to initiate Kraven’s story, but its effect in Spider-Man: No Way Home does at least open the possibility for the Sonyverse to deploy an alternative Spider-Man to Holland. Therefore, in the wake of pleas for a third installment of The Amazing Spider-Man, fan favorite Andrew Garfield should surely be part of the conversation for Kraven the Hunter. Spider-Man: No Way Home gave Garfield’s Spider-Man a resonating MCU treatment and charmingly added closure to his narrative arc as he manages to save MJ (Zendaya) in a scene visually parallel to Gwen’s (Emma Stone) death in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Though writing a screenplay that could appropriately cast Garfield as Spider-Man in Kraven the Hunter would not be simple, it would be less clumsy than casting Holland in the Sonyverse, while also giving audiences Garfield’s Spider-Man swan song. Sony could, however, look beyond the scope of Peter Parker – it could be the perfect opportunity to introduce Miles Morales to a live-action film. Every option is prone to deviating from the central role of Kraven, but with a Spider-Man obsession defining much of the big game hunter’s identity, the web-slinger’s involvement seems essential in doing Kraven’s story justice.
Key Release Dates
- Morbius (2022)Release date: Apr 01, 2022
- Kraven the Hunter (2023)Release date: Jan 13, 2023
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