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Does 'Kraven the Hunter' Have a Release Date?
Will 'Kraven the Hunter' Be in Theaters or Streaming?
Is There a Trailer for 'Kraven the Hunter'?
Who Stars in 'Kraven the Hunter'?
Who Is Making 'Kraven the Hunter'?
What Do We Know About the Plot of 'Kraven the Hunter'?
When and Where Was 'Kraven the Hunter' Filmed?
What Will 'Kraven the Hunter' be Rated?
Sergei Kravinoff a.k.a. Kraven, a classic Spider-Man villain, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, and a founding member of the Sinister Six, was teased in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). In Marvel Comics, Kraven is depicted as a Russian nobleman whose family was compelled to immigrate to America in 1917 due to the February Revolution. Kraven became an obsessive big game hunter and, after mastering the sport, made Spider-Man his target in an effort to establish himself as the world's best hunter. In 2014, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 director Marc Webb indicated an interest in seeing the character in a movie.
After several years of considering a Kraven movie, Sony became interested in a standalone film for the character in 2017. Richard Wenk was then hired to write a screenplay for Kraven the Hunter in August 2018 and Sony confirmed that the film was in development in March 2019. Surprisingly, before learning that Sony owned the cinematic rights to Kraven, filmmaker Ryan Coogler had wanted to feature the character in his MCU film Black Panther. The upcoming movie will thus give Kraven a well-deserved introduction to Sony's shared superhero universe.
Editor's Note: This article was updated on August 16, 2024.
Kraven the Hunter
Action
Adventure
Sci-Fi
Russian immigrant Sergei Kravinoff is on a mission to prove that he is the greatest hunter in the world.
- Release Date
- August 30, 2024
- Director
- J.C. Chandor
- Cast
- Aaron Taylor-Johnson , Russell Crowe , Christopher Abbott , Ariana DeBose
- Main Genre
- Action
- Writers
- Richard Wenk , Art Marcum , Matt Holloway
Does 'Kraven the Hunter' Have a Release Date?
Kraven the Hunter is set to hit theaters on Friday, December 13, 2024. The R-rated superhero flick will be opening up against the animated spin-off movie The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.
Kraven the Hunter has gone through numerous delays, having previously been scheduled for release on January 13, 2023; October 6, 2023; and August 30, 2024.
While a movie changing release dates multiple times can often be a cause for concern (The New Mutants comes to mind), sometimes it is done to make the movie better and that is exactly what happened with Kraven the Hunter. At least, according to producer Matt Tolmach, who spoke about the movie's delay in an exclusive interview with Collider's Steve Weintraub. Tolmach said:
" Kraven moved to Christmas because we're excited about it and Christmas is the best release period there is, when you get people with time to go back to the movies over and over again. That was a real reflection of how the studio felt about the movie. We're really excited. But that's a great move that reflects just the feeling about the movie."
This was further confirmed in a piece from Deadline Hollywood, where it was reported that Chandor used the movie's numerous delays to sharpen the film's characters and tighten the plot with reshoots. The delay was also done in part in the wake of the critical and financial disaster of Madame Web, with Sony hoping that Kraven can recapture the box office success of its Venom movies.
Will 'Kraven the Hunter' Be in Theaters or Streaming?
Kraven the Hunter will be released exclusively in movie theaters in December 2024.
The film will eventually be available to stream on Netflix after its theatrical window as well as after it hits video-on-demand and home video. This is thanks to a deal that was struck between Netflix and Sony back in April 2021 which gives the streaming service the exclusive pay-one window for new films from Sony.
Is There a Trailer for 'Kraven the Hunter'?
The first trailer for Kraven The Hunter was released on June 19, 2023. The three-minute trailer reveals that the film will be an origin story for the hunter. Seeing a young Kraven encounter a mighty lion only to gain animal-like powers is an interesting twist on the Spider-Man mythos.
Sony Pictures released the second trailer for Kraven the Hunter on August 16, 2024, giving our first look at the movie's main antagonist: The Rhino.
Who Stars in 'Kraven the Hunter'?
For the character of Kraven, Sony approached celebrities including Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves, John David Washington, and Adam Driver. However, the producers swiftly decided to cast Aaron Taylor-Johnson after being blown away by early footage of his role in the 2022 action-comedy Bullet Train. He is most known for playing the title character in Kick-Ass and its sequel as well as Pietro Maximoff in Avengers: Age of Ultron in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In March 2022, it was announced that Academy Award-winning actress Ariana DeBose would be taking on the role of Calypso. In the comics, Calypso serves Kraven's love interest and a voodoo priestess who uses magic potions. In Marvel Comics, Calypso is typically portrayed as Spider-Man's adversary. Fans can anticipate that the filmmakers will explore the couple's romantic relationship in the movie. DeBose received tremendous acclaim for her performance as Anita in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story. Additionally, she played Alyssa Greene in Ryan Murphy's musical movie The Prom and Emma Tate in the Apple TV+ musical comedy series Schmigadoon!. Jodie Turner-Smith was initially rumored to be playing the role of Calypso
Alessandro Nivola was recently revealed to be playing the film's main villain, the iconic Spider-Man villain the Rhino. The character was previously portrayed by Paul Giamatti in 2014 in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but Nivola's take on the Rhino will be much different. With a vast list of acting achievements, Nivola is most known for his role as Nicolas Cage's brother Pollux Troy in John Woo's 1997 film Face/Off. He starred alongside Christian Bale and Margot Robbie in David O. Russell'sAmsterdam in 2022, as well in the comedy Spin Me Round alongside Alison Brie and Aubrey Plaza. His other well-known films are One Percent More Humid and The Red Sea Diving Resort.
The other antagonist will be played by Christopher Abbott, which will reportedly be the Foreigner. Nivola is known for playing Mason Tannetti in The Sinner and Charlie Dattolo in the HBO comedy-drama series Girls. His other well-known movies are On the Count of Three, The Sleepwalker, and Hello I Must Be Going.
Fred Hechinger joined the cast of Kraven the Hunter in February 2022 as Dmitri Smerdyakov a.k.a. Chameleon, who is Kraven's half-brother. The supervillain Chameleon is the first ever adversary of Spider-Man in Marvel Comics. He is a master of disguises, known for his ability to impersonate virtually anybody. He is best known for playing Trevor in Eighth Grade, John Calley in News of the World, and Ethan Russell in The Woman in the Window. Additionally, he appeared in the first season of the renowned HBO anthology series The White Lotus as well as the Fear Street Trilogy. Academy Award nominee Kodi Smit-McPhee who is most known for playing the role of Peter in The Power of the Dog and Nightcrawler in X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix was initially approached for the role, but ultimately turned the role down.
Academy Award-winning actor Russell Crowe will be playing the role of Kraven's father, with whom he has a complicated relationship with. This won't be Crowe's first venture into the world of superheroes, he previously played Jor-El, the father of Superman, in Man of Steel and he most recently played Zeus in Thor: Love & Thunder. Up-and-coming star Levi Miller stars as a younger Kraven.
Who Is Making 'Kraven the Hunter'?
Richard Wenk, who wrote the screenplays for both Equalizer films (and wrote the upcoming third installment), as well as The Expendables 2 and The Magnificent Seven, wrote the screenplay for Kraven the Hunter. He is accompanied by the screenwriting duo Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, who previously wrote the scripts for movies like Iron Man, Punisher: War Zone, and last year's Uncharted. A year after Wenk was brought on board as the screenwriter, J.C. Chandor was hired to direct. Chandor is most known for directing the Netflix blockbuster Triple Frontier, as well as the survival film All is Lost, and the crime drama A Most Violent Year. Matt Tolmach, Amy Pascal, and Avi Arad are set as producers. Ben Davis served as cinematographer for Kraven the Hunter having previously worked on superhero films such as Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, and Avengers: Age of Ultron.
What Do We Know About the Plot of 'Kraven the Hunter'?
As Sergei Kravinoff embarks on a quest to establish himself as the best hunter in the world, Kraven the Hunter will follow his life narrative.
The official plot synopsis via Sony Pictures reads:
Kraven the Hunter is the visceral, action-packed origin story of how and why one of Marvel's most iconic villains came to be. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Kraven, a man whose complex relationship with his ruthless father, Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe), starts him down a path of vengeance with brutal consequences, motivating him to become not only the greatest hunter in the world, but also one of its most feared.
Taylor-Johnson teased the changes that he'll be bringing to the character, calling his version of Kraven "an animal lover" and "a protector of the natural world."
In an interview with Esquire, Chandor teased a much darker tone for the film.
“Sony probably doesn’t want me to lead with this, but the story is a tragedy. When the final credits roll on this film, if you’ve been paying attention, you won’t have the feeling that this is all going to end great."
When and Where Was 'Kraven the Hunter' Filmed?
Early in February 2022, under the working title Safari, Kraven the Hunter was filmed in Iceland at Lake Mývatn. 80 people from the production company TrueNorth Productions worked on the two days of filming. Later, with the working title Spiral, principal photography commenced on March 20, 2022, in London, England, and was finished by mid-June.
What Will 'Kraven the Hunter' be Rated?
Kraven the Hunter has officially been rated R by the MPA for "strong bloody violence, and language."
During the film's CinemaCon presentation in 2023, Taylor-Johnson revealed that Kraven the Hunter will be rated R, making it the first film in Sony's Spider-Man universe to receive such a rating. While many fans hoped that the Venom movies would warrant an R-rating, both were slapped with a PG-13 rating, while Morbius was also rated PG-13. While most superhero films are rated PG-13, the success of the Deadpool films encouraged studios to aim for the rating more frequently with their superhero movies, with films like Logan, Joker, Birds of Prey, The Suicide Squad, and Zack Snyder's Justice League, all landing R-ratings.
