Aaron Taylor-Johnson goes hunting big game as Kraven the Hunter.
In the trailer, after being bitten by a lion, Kraven gets his superpowers of strength and agility, along with the ability to communicate with and control the animal. It is also shown that when he is a child, he is thrown into a conflict with a lion by his own father, who wants to tame him. Weakness is not tolerated, as future Kraven is told time and again. Suffice it to say that ultimately isn’t a problem.
The upcoming film teases the villain’s origin story for the Marvel character. In the comic book storyline, Kraven is a bounty hunter who sets his sights on Spider-Man. He is also often featured as a member of the supervillain Six Sisters team. Kraven has faced Venom, Black Panther and many others as well as being one of Spider-Man’s best known and most formidable foes.
In addition to Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who plays the titular role, Ariana DeBose plays Calypso, Kraven’s love interest and his fellow future villain of Spider-Man. Russell Crowe plays Kraven’s father. Interestingly, he’s also previously appeared in the MCU as Zeus, the God of Thunder in Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder last year.
Unsurprisingly, Aaron Taylor-Johnson is best known for playing the titular role in the 2010 action flick Kick-Ass. He most recently appeared in Christopher Nolan’s 2020 sci-fi action thriller Tenet as Ives and in David Leitch’s action thriller Bullet Train last year co-starring Brad Pitt. Interestingly, Aaron previously appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Pietro Maximoff, who has lightning speed as his superpower, in Joss Whedon’s 2015 film Avengers: The Age of Ultron. He also played the brother of Wanda Maximoff who is later killed in the film.
The first R-rated film from Sony Pictures will be directed by Jesse Chandor from a screenplay by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway and Richard Wenk. Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach and David Householter are the producers.