Sony has been talking about making a Kraven the Hunter movie ever since it began working on Spider-Man spinoff properties.
While fan casting had Keanu Reeves as a perfect actor for the role and Joe Manganiello would tell anyone who would listen he would love the role, Sony went with a questionable choice for the lead.
Sony has cast Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Kraven the Hunter.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson is Kraven the Hunter
Deadline reported Sony tapped Aaron Taylor-Johnson to play Kraven the Hunter in the Spider-Man spinoff movie.
This is an interesting choice, as Taylor-Johnson already played a superhero in a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. He starred as Quicksilver in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Wanda Maximoff’s brother who died in a hail of bullets to save lives.
Quicksilver returned in WandaVision, but it was Fox’s Evan Peters who took on the role, which turned out to be a twist, as he wasn’t really Quicksilver.
Taylor-Johnson has another superhero credit to his name, as he starred as the lead in Kick-Ass in 2010.
Taylor-Johnson most recently shot the movie Bullet Train with Brad Pitt, which just wrapped production.
J.C. Chandor signed on to direct the film last year, and the film has been in development since that time. Matt Tolmach and Avi Arad will produce. Art Marcum and Matt Holloway penned the script.
Chandor made his name with movies like Margin Call, A Most Violent Year and most recently Netflix’s Triple Frontier.
Who is Kraven the Hunter?
Kraven the Hunter first appeared in 1964 as a Spider-Man villain. He wasn’t like other villains who used his powers to rob banks to take over as a mob boss.
Kraven was Sergei Kravinoff, considered to be the world’s greatest hunter. He sought big game and had killed everything he ever set out to take down. He searched for bigger game and, when he learned of Spider-Man, Kraven decided he was the target that would solidify him as the best hunter.
However, he ingested a serum that gave him super strength and stamina, making him even more powerful than a normal human.
Kraven was a nemesis for Spider-Man for many years and finally appeared in one of Spider-Man’s greatest comic book storylines, Kraven’s Last Hunt.
In this, he went after Spider-Man and finally won. However, he chose not to kill Spider-Man and instead shot him with a tranquilizer and buried him alive.
With his greatest victory, Kraven stole Spider-Man’s costume and began fighting crime, only to realize that he was wrong about Spider-Man all these years and that the Wall-Crawler was a genuine hero.
Sony’s Kraven the Hunter starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson is scheduled for a January 13, 2023 theatrical release.