Hot on the heels on the much loved Venom: The Last Dance, the little-loved Morbius, and whatever the hell Madame Web was, comes the latest addition to Sony’s weird universe of Spider-Man villains. It’s a rights thing, right?
How to watch Kraven the Hunter in the UK
Kraven the Hunter arrives in UK cinemas on December 13, 2024.
Kraven the Hunter
What is Kraven the Hunter about?
Well, there’s this hunter, see…
Despite his cowardly-sounding name, Kraven is one of Spider-Man’s greatest villains. Conceived as a riff on the classic (and much filmed) short story The Most Dangerous Game, he’s the greatest hunter in the world, and what he really wants to hunt is our web-slinging hero. He basically comes across as like an evil Tarzan, or the Marvel version of Sherlock Holmes villain Colonel Sebastian Moran. Or possibly an evil Jon Sable? Yeah, our deep cuts go all the way to the bone.
Plot details are thin on the ground. Lacking Kraven’s exceptional tracking ability, all we can say for sure is that it’ll be an origin story, he’ll be more of an anti-hero than a straight villain, and we suspect there’ll be daddy issues in play, as his old man is being played by grizzled legend Rusty Crowe.
The cast of Kraven the Hunter
You’ll see a lot of familiar names here if you know your Spider-Man lore. Obviously, Aaron Taylor-Johnson is Sergei Kravinoff/Kraven, the big game hunter turned antihero. We’re also getting Ariana DeBose as voodoo priestess Calypso Ezili, who is also Kraven’s love interest; Fred Hechinger a master of disguise Dmitri Smerdyakov, aka Chameleon, our antihero’s estranged half-brother; Alessandro Nivola as Aleksei Sytsevich, better known as recurring Spidey antagonist Rhino; Christopher Abbott as the assassin the Foreigner, a character we thought everyone but us had copletely forgotten; and, as previously mentioned, Russell Crowe as Nikolai Kravinoff, Kraven’s dad.
Kraven the Hunter trailer
Here, have the first eight minutes.
Why we’re excited about Kraven the Hunter
Look, based on recent releases in the franchise, the only way is up.
