Aaron Taylor-Johnson To Play ‘Kraven The Hunter’ In Self-Titled Solo Film
Aaron Taylor-Johnson has signed a multi-picture deal to portray the infamous villain from the Spider-Man rogue’s gallery, Kraven The Hunter.
‘Kraven The Hunter’ shall be another entry into the ever-long titled ‘Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters,’ SPUMC for short, joining the ‘Venom’ series and ‘Morbius.’ While still early in development, the studio has already brought on director J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year, Triple Frontier) to helm the project. Art Marcum & Matt Holloway (Iron Man, Men In Black: International), and Richard Wenk (The Equalizer) collaborated on the screenplay.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson has plenty of experience wearing capes and spandex suits, previously playing the titular character in ‘Kick-Ass,’ and Pietro Maximoff (Quicksilver) in ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron.’ However, this already seems that it may be his most commanding and present role to date, taking on the mantle as one of Spider-Man’s greatest adversaries. Sergei Kravinoff a.k.a Kraven The Hunter is an iconic villain whose origin stems from a man on the search for purpose and rejuvenation. He finds his passion of hunting, preferably big game, and one day is confronted by a witch doctor by the name of Calypso. During their encounter, Calypso promises the desires Sergei seeks, providing him with a potion that gives him superhuman abilities. Eventually, the cycle of his venture becomes too repetitive for his liking, which leads him to go after his most challenging prey yet, the web-crawler himself. While it’s unknown exactly what path Sony’s universe is aiming to take, it will be interesting to see what they have in mind for the character as well as their probable meet-up scheme with Spider-Man.
Deadline’s Justin Croll stated Sony had previously reached out to household names such as Brad Pitt and Keanu Reeves, that is until they found themselves instantly won over by Taylor-Johnson’s ‘Bullet Train’ and instantly offered him the lead. Hopefully, that is a major testament of what he can do in the role, possibly being able to deliver a performance that we look back on for a long time after.
‘Kraven The Hunter’ is scheduled to release January 13, 2023.