Kraven The Hunter wants to be your Christmastime supervillain surprise

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We wish we could manifest, in our day-to-day lives, the same joyful optimism with which Sony makes movies set in the Spider-Man universe, in which Spider-Man himself does not actually appear. (Except, possibly, as a baby, lacking the proportional strength and agility of even the tiniest of spiders.) Despite what has been an almost platonic illustration of the concept of "diminishing returns" since the box office success of Venom back in 2018—highlighted by the recent box office failure of Dakota Johnson's Madame Web—the studio has just announced that it's moving back its next such film, supervillain story Kraven The Hunter, to December 13, 2024, all the better to face off at the holiday box office against the big dogs. (I.e., Keanu Reeves playing a hedgehog who also owns a gun.)

The thinking, apparently, is to give audiences an R-rated option in a holiday season that's going to be filled with Disney fare (Moana 2 and Barry Jenkins' Mufasa are coming out within a month of each other), musicals (i.e., Wicked), and animated projects like Sonic The Hedgehog 3 and The Lord Of The Rings: The War Of The Rohirrim. (Also, Amy Adams' Nightbitch. Nobody ever expects Nightbitch!) This does mean that Kraven, which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the titular man/Spider-Man-hunter, has now been delayed fully four times since it was originally announced, having once upon a time been slated for a January 2023 release. But it's also at least a partial admission that the movie is the best bet the studio has got for a packed holiday season. (It's also bumping Jackie Chan's new Karate Kid movie, which was previously in the slot, and will now release in May of 2025.)

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Kraven stars Taylor-Johnson as the titular bad guy, who's a classic Spidey villain despite dressing primarily in what is, we'd wager, the goofiest vest in all of comics-dom. Directed by J.C. Chandor, the film also stars Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger, Alessandro Nivola, Christopher Abbott, and Russell Crowe.

[via Variety]