Sony Goes Ravin’ For First 'Kraven The Hunter' Trailer In 14 Months
Sony Goes Ravin’ For First 'Kraven The Hunter' Trailer In 14 Months
The Aaron Taylor-Johnson-starring Spider-Man villain film is set for release on December 13
Just when you thought you forgot this was happening, Sony Pictures’s Kraven the Hunter comes charging back in…at 3 AM Eastern? Even Patrick Star is raising an eyebrow. And yes I’m still getting to finishing Marvel Studios’s presence at San Diego Comic-Con (it’s not doomed) as well as getting to its D23 stuff. The studio has released its second trailer for the third Spider-Man villain pic this year, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
This new trailer is the first since June 2023, before its latter two release date moves. The first was about a month later due to the dual strikes that would have had it out two weeks from this Friday, and the other this past April, where it currently stands for a December 13 release to fill a Christmas hole left by the unready new Karate Kid film which moved to May 2025. The trailer, set to Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around”, starts with Kraven, real name Sergei Kravinoff, stabbing a prison warden to trigger his own escape. He’s in conversation with Calypso, his voodoo priestess girlfriend played by Ariana DeBose, about his father, Nikolai Kravinoff, the gangster, the killer. Kraven also takes down the military-dressed. His hunt truly is beginning. We even get a full glimpse of the Rhino, real name Aleksei Sytsevich and played by Alessandro Nivola, here a Russian mercenary who transforms into a human-rhino hybrid ready to throw hands and pummel in the African savannah. It ends on Kraven carrying a torch while in his fur coat and howling.
Called one of Spider-Man’s best known and formidable enemies, the synopsis describes that it is the “visceral, action-packed origin story of how and why one of Marvel’s most iconic villains came to be”. Kraven is a man whose “complex relationship with his ruthless father”, who left him for dead after a lion attack where its bite seemingly gave him enhanced abilities starts him down a path of vengeance” with “brutal consequences”. It brings him to become not only the greatest hunter in the world, but one of its most feared.
The film also stars Fred Hechinger as Dmitri Smerdyakov, Kraven’s half brother and master of disguise the Chameleon, and Christopher Abbott as the mercenary and assassin known as the Foreigner. It’s written by a screenplay by Art Marcum & Matt Holloway and Richard Wenk with Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, and David Householter are the producers. About 12 hours before the trailer dropped, it was reported that director J.C. Chandor closed a deal to direct his own contemporary drama script that may be his next project. Apparently, the Kraven delays allowed for more time for Chandor to sharpen the characters and tighten the plot, through strategic reshoots that were considered effective. Sony higher-ups are optimistic that Kraven will be more in line with the Venom films in terms of success than a Madame Web or Morbius. He apparently got along with Tom Rothman and Sanford Panitch in particular. Chandor had told Deadline “I’m extremely proud of the work we have all done together on Kraven, and when the movie finally gets its chance to be seen I think it’s gonna surprise the hell out of a lot of people.”
Sources: The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline (1, 2)