So far, Sony’s Spider-Man-adjacent Marvel movies have shied away from going hard-R rated – even the Venom films have played it safe overall. But that’s not the case with Kraven The Hunter. The latest outing from the universe formerly known as ‘SPUMC’ (the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters) – following on from February’s Madame Web – brings one of Spidey’s most formidable foes to the screen in an origin story that looks to go hard and the blood and gore. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is stepping into the fur-shouldered get-up, on a mission of vengeance that sees him become the world’s greatest hunter. Check out the trailer here:
If there’s an overarching message to this trailer, it’s that Kraven The Hunter is really going hard on the bloody violence – and given that Deadpool & Wolverine just became the second-ever R-rated film to cross the billion-dollar mark at the worldwide box office, it’s easy to see why Kraven might want to position itself in a similar realm (though, tonally, Kraven looks unlikely to be hunting down Deadpool-style gags). Did you see that guy explode against a tree trunk? And someone get a bear trap to the head? Boy, that escalated quickly. Beyond Taylor-Johnson dishing out brutal vengeance, we get a glimpse at the film’s incarnation of classic Spidey villain Rhino (played in human form by Alessandro Nivola), Ariana DeBose’s Calypso, and more of Russell Crowe’s latest accent exploration as Kraven’s father Nikolai. It’s directed by J.C. Chandor, previously behind A Most Violent Year and Triple Frontier.
Just how bloody will Kraven get? Can it rake up serious box office cash like Deadpool & Wolverine? And will it manage to hit the heights of, erm, Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Morbius, and Madame Web? We’ll find out when it hits UK cinemas in December.