Sony is really leaning into this Spider-Man-free Spiderverse. With ‘Venom’ set to creep into theaters in October, Sony has lined up ‘The Equalizer 2”s Richard Wenk to pen a screenplay for a film starring another Spider-foe, ‘Kraven the Hunter’. There was mention of a ‘Kraven’ film being in development last June, along with a Mysterio film. Now we know that Mysterio is actually going to appear in ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ and will be played by Jake Gyllenhaal. Incidentally, if you watch the end title sequence of ‘Amazing Spider-Man 2’, you’ll notice that it was teased that both Kraven and Mysterio were planned to be part of the ‘Sinister Six’ movie that Sony was planning to spin-off at the time, but when ‘Amazing 2′ faltered at the box office, that plan was scrapped.
Wenk is a prolific action movie writer, having penned the screenplay for the acclaimed Richard Donner-helmed ’16 Blocks’, he followed with scripts for ‘The Mechanic’, ‘The Expendables 2’, both ‘Equalizer’ movies, ‘The Magnificent Seven’ and ‘Jack Reacher: Never Go Back’. So it looks like should this ‘Kraven’ project come to fruition, it will be heavy on action and probably a little less dramatic than typical comic book movies.
Despite rumors back and forth, it seems fairly obvious now that ‘Venom’ has nothing to do with Spider-Man. It is rated R and his costume will not feature the famous white spider logo from the comics. Presumably, that will be the case with all of Sony’s Spider-verse movies. Sony also has ‘Silver & Black’ in development. It was scheduled to begin production, but those plans were changed when it was determined that the script needed to be re-written. There is also a movie based on obscure ’90s character ‘Nightwatch’ in development, which Spike Lee was reportedly interested in directing, but there hasn’t been any news about it in a while.
Kraven the Hunter is Sergei Kravinoff, the child of Russian immigrants who becomes the world’s greatest big game hunter. Having conquered the beasts of the world, he decides to hunt Spider-Man for sport. Though Kraven doesn’t possess any innate superpowers, he ingests a potion that gives him enhanced strength, speed, agility, and senses.
Incidentally, Kraven is the half-brother of Dmitri Smerdyakov, also known as The Chameleon, who is rumored to appear as a villain in ‘Silver & Black’.
We’ll have to wait and see if this movie ever gets made. Presumably, a lot of that will depend on how well ‘Venom’ does. At this point, that’s a huge question mark as Venom is not as popular nowadays as he was in the 1990s. Star Tom Hardy isn’t a major draw on his own and the R-rating will deter parents from bringing their superhero-loving kids. Unlike ‘Deadpool’, ‘Venom’ looks deadly serious and straightforward.
Do you think ‘Kraven the Hunter’ is interesting enough to support his own movie? Who do you think should star?
Source: Collider
