'Kraven The Hunter' And 'The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim' Take Their First 8 Minutes Online Ahead Of Box Office Battle
Lords and hunters and wars oh my! Coming to theaters December 13
The December 6 weekend pulled through on its to be quieter in terms of new releases, with the Kyle Mooney-directed Y2K probably being the most publicized but still only coming in 8th place. The next two weekends however have some pretty big pairs opening up, most pertinently December 13 seeing the releases of Sony’s Kraven the Hunter and Warner Bros.’s anime-inspired animated The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. Both films put their first 8 minutes up online, and while some do it while the film is in theaters, others to promote the home releases, at the very least Rohirrim did to mark that tickets were now on sale.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim’s footage actually had a stopgap, as it was the same footage shown to New York Comic-Con attendees. Directed by Kenji Kamiyama, whose previous work includes Blade Runner: Black Lotus, it is 183 years before the original trilogy, telling the final days of the House of Helm Hammerhand, the legendary King of Rohan here voiced by Brian Cox. They find themselves facing down the revenge-seeking Dunlending lord Wulf, voiced by Luke Pasqualino. Clever and ruthless, the vengeance is for the death of his father, and his attack forces Helm and his people to make a daring last stand in the ancient stronghold of the Hornburg, the mighty fortress that would become known as as Helm’s Deep. His daughter Héra, voiced by Gaia Wise, must summon the will to lead the resistance to avert their total destruction, even in her increasing desperation. The footage definitely shows the battle brewing, the monstrosities they have to face.
Narrated by Éowyn, Shieldmaiden of Rohan from the original trilogy, she’s voiced once again by Miranda Otto. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim also stars Lorraine Ashbourne, Yazdan Qafouri, Benjamin Wainwright, Laurence Ubong Williams, Shaun Dooley, Michael Wildman, Jude Akuwudike, Bilal Hasna, and Janine Duvitski. Jeffrey Addiss & Will Matthews and Phoebe Gittins & Arty Papageorgiou wrote the film from a story by Addiss & Matthews and Phillipa Boyens, based on Tolkien’s characters. Boyens produces with Jason DeMarco, the Senior Vice President of Anime and Action Series/Longform at Warner Bros. Animation, and Joseph Chou. Fran Walsh, original trilogy director Peter Jackson, Warner Bros. Animation President Sam Register, former Warner Bros. Pictures Chief Operating Officer Carolyn Blackwood and Toby Emmerich served as executive producers.
Kraven the Hunter is the origin story of yet another of Spider-Man’s rogues, real name Sergei Kravinoff here played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, with ruthless father Nikolai, played by Russell Crowe. Dad puts him down a path of vengeance with brutal consequences, and causes him to become not only the greatest, most-feared hunter in the world. The film opens with prisoners being loaded onto a bus for transport in the wintry Russian wilderness. Kraven wanders off, and broods over the horizon when he’s discovered by a guard that taunts him he would never survive. At the prison, Kraven analyzes the dimensions of his surroundings, confident he won’t be around very long. He gets in a prison fight and for it he's brought before the prison warden, Chorney, who is head of the gun-running Kirov gang. And there it’s revealed his mission was to infiltrate the prison to Chorney and exact revenge for the innocent lives lost to their criminal activities. "There's an ounce of truth in every myth," Kraven tells Chorney right before stabbing him in the neck. He of course escapes.
Kraven the Hunter also stars Ariana DeBose as the voodoo priestess Calypso, Kraven's love interest, Fred Hechinger as Dmitri Smerdyakov, Kraven’s half brother and master of disguise the Chameleon, Alessandro Nivola as Russian mercenary Aleksei Sytsevich, aka Rhino, a version that is a human/rhino hybrid transformation; and Christopher Abbott as another mercenary and assassin known as the Foreigner. It’s written by Art Marcum & Matt Holloway and Richard Wenk. Sony Spidey mainstay Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, and David Householter are the producers. The upload already has 2 million viewers, so there’s clearly some sort of interest, but we’ll see how much that translates to ticket sales, especially in the one week before Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Mufasa enter the fray.
Sources: IGN, ArsTechnica