The first reactions to Sony’s Marvel Comics adaptation Kraven the Hunter are largely negative, pointing out issues with the storytelling
Sony’s Marvel Comics adaptation Kraven the Hunter is set to reach theatres on December 13th. This movie is, along with Morbius, Madame Web, and the Venom trilogy, part of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (which was formerly known as the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters), which consists of Marvel adaptations that doesn’t have the creative team of Marvel Studios behind them, so therefore they’re not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sony is able to make these films because they own the movie rights to all characters that were originally introduced in the pages of Spider-Man comics. The financial success of the Venom movies aside (and that trilogy has had diminishing returns), these movies haven’t tended to go over well with movie-goers, something which Kraven director J. C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year) has had to address, asking that people give his movie the chance to wash away the bad taste left by Morbius and Madame Web… But now, the first reactions to the film are dropping online, and they’re largely negative. It doesn’t sound like this is a huge step up from the other films in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.
Directed by Chandor from a screenplay by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway, Kraven the Hunter is the action-packed, R-rated, standalone story of how one of Marvel’s most iconic villains came to be. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Kraven, a man whose complex relationship with his ruthless gangster 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.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars as the title character and is joined in the cast by Ariana DeBose as voodoo priestess Calypso Ezili, Fred Hechinger as Kraven’s estranged brother and master of disguise Dmitri Smerdyakov / Chameleon, Alessandro Nivola as Russian mercenary and human-rhino hybrid Aleksei Sytsevich / Rhino, Christopher Abbott as a mercenary and assassin known as the Foreigner, and Russell Crowe as Kraven’s estranged father, the ruthless crime lord Nikolai Kravinoff.
Our review will be dropping here on JoBlo.com at 9am (Eastern) tomorrow morning. In the meantime, here are some of the first reactions, which are mostly negative, with a few positive along the way:
What do you think of the first Kraven the Hunter reactions? Will you be catching this movie on the big screen this weekend? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
