Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU) got off to a strong start with Venom (2018) and Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), both of which racked up high box office earnings despite mixed-to-negative reviews from critics. But then the studio foundered badly with a couple of box office flops: 2022's Morbius and 2024's Madame Web.

Sony hopes to right the ship with a third Venom film in October (The Last Dance) and the much-delayed Kraven the Hunter this December. We've got a new trailer for the latter, leaning heavily into R-rated gore and set to Johnny Cash's moodily atmospheric "The Man Comes Around." It's an entirely different, darker vibe from prior offerings: a revenge narrative rife with violence and daddy issues. Color us intrigued.

Comic book fans are well acquainted with Kraven as one of Spider-Man's most formidable foes, a founding member of the Sinister Six. He's a Russian immigrant with an aristocratic background who fled his home country when Tsar Nicholas II's reign collapsed in 1917. He's a big-game hunter with enhanced abilities thanks to ingesting a mysterious potion made from jungle herbs. He's very hard to injure and has super-human strength and enhanced sight, hearing, and smell, as well as being a good tactician with excellent hand-to-hand combat skills.

Screenwriter Richard Wenk has said that Sony intended to adapt the critically acclaimed 1987 storyline in Kraven's Last Hunt by J.M. DeMatteis, Mike Zeck, and Bob McLeod, which leaned heavily into the character's Russian origins to create a very Dostoyevsky-like arc of a tortured soul. That storyline features an older Kraven, with failing health, who decides to hunt Spider-Man one last time, whereas the film is clearly an origin story. And Kraven actually dies by suicide in that comic arc, but we're guessing Sony has plans to use him in other SSU films, with or without his arch-nemesis Spider-Man.

Per the official premise:

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.

In addition to Taylor-Johnson and Crowe, the cast includes Ariana DeBose as the voodoo priestess Calypso, Kraven's love interest; Fred Hechinger as Dmitri Smerdyakov, aka Chameleon, Kraven's half-brother; Alessandro Nivola as Aleksei Sytsevich, aka Rhino, a Russian mercenary who can transform into a human/rhino hybrid; Christopher Abbott as a mercenary and assassin called the Foreigner; and Levi Miller as young Sergei.

Kraven the Hunter hits theaters on December 13, 2024.

It’s huntin’ time.

Aaron Taylor Johnson’s antihero goes toe-to-toe against the fellow Spider-Man villain, the Rhino (Alessandro Nivola), in the bloody new trailer for Sony’s R-rated superhero film, Kraven the Hunter. The big game hunter, a.k.a Sergei Kravinoff, can be seen confronting his target from the top of a cargo truck in the clip, only for the Rhino to flip the vehicle and send Kraven rocketing into an active wildebeest stampede. 

Nivola is set to play a sadistic new iteration of the Rhino — who was previously played by Paul Giamatti in 2014's Amazing Spider-Man 2 — in the upcoming film. And, unlike his predecessor who sported mechanized rhinocerous armor, this version of the Russian mercenary actually turns into a full rhino-man hybrid with impressive super-strength.

But the Rhino isn’t the only one on Kraven’s kill list. After escaping from prison, he can be seen embarking on a ruthless killing spree as he tosses bear traps onto people’s heads, snaps necks, and, at one point, absolutely obliterates a man by splitting him in half with a tree stump. 

His loved ones, however, aren’t so taken by Kraven's penchant for vigilante justice. “You think you have some kind of honor. Some kind of code. You’re just another man hunting for a trophy,” his half-brother Dmitri (Fred Hechinger) sneers. “Just like our father.” 

It’s a touchy subject for Kraven, who rebuked their father Nikolai (Russell Crowe) and his bloody teachings as a child after being mauled by a lion. The trailer also highlights Ariana DeBose as Kraven’s ally Calypso, a villain in the Spider-Man comics who similarly questions how he chooses to use his bloodthirsty nature.

"Are you like your father?" she presses. "A gangster? A killer?"

This isn't Johnson's first foray into the world of superheroes, either. He previously starred as the speedy Quicksilver, the twin brother of Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) in Marvel's 2015 film, Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Kraven the Hunter is the fifth origin story within Sony’s Spider-Man universe. Part of their continued collaboration with Marvel Studios, the ever-expanding world includes films like Tom Holland's Spider-Man with Disney, Tom Hardy's Venom, Dakota Johnson’s Madame Web, and Jared Leto's Morbius.

The film, directed by J. C. Chandor, pounces into cinemas on Dec. 13. Watch the trailer above. 

After directing Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the lead role of the Spider-Man spinoff Kraven the Hunter, J.C. Chandor has closed a deal with Sony Pictures to direct a new untitled contemporary drama he has written. It might be his next outing as director. This comes after Sony saw Chandor’s latest cut, which prompted a move to a December 13 release slot. The new trailer for Kraven bows shortly.

The new film is a drama that is a callback to his early films Margin Call, A Most Violent Year and Triple Frontier, in terms of the polemics of capitalism. I’ve heard this one is a contemporary thriller involving the investigation of a death in a moneyed dynastic family. Think Succession with an Erin Brockovich feel.

Kraven stars Taylor-Johnson as the son of a ruthless Russian gangster (Russell Crowe). He is an incredibly efficient hunter who has a complicated and antagonistic relationship with his father. Originally dated for Oct. 6, 2023, the pic moved to upcoming Labor Day weekend on Aug. 30, before moving again to be an R-rated Christmas corridor counterprogramming film, released December 13. Pic introduces Alessandro Nivola as the Spidey-nemesis The Rhino, and Fred Hechinger as The Chameleon, and Ariana DeBose plays the Marvel character Calypso. The delays allowed for Chandor to sharpen the characters and tighten the plot, and some strategic reshoots which were effective. After enduring a misfire with Madame Web, SPE brass is optimistic that Kraven will be more in line with the Venom films.

I reached out to Chandor and he texted back confirmation: “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. As for what’s next for me, as always that’s up to the moviemaking gods.”

Chandor and SPE’s Tom Rothman and Sanford Panitch got along well, making the most of the extra time to sharpen the film. I’ve heard Chandor has finished his first draft and cast is already circling, so this might all move on a fast track.

Chandor is repped by CAA and attorney Andrew Hurwitz.