In the endless shuffling that resulted from production and release delays last year, Sony’s latest Spider-Man movie that doesn’t feature Spider-Man, Kraven the Hunter, got booted around several times before finally landing on a December 2024 release date. They are apparently locked into that date, because they are restarting the marketing cycle for Kraven the Hunter four months before it is (now) due in theaters.
As a refresher, because this movie was supposed to come out early LAST year, the first trailer looked terrible, except for Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s abs. This new trailer is a marked improvement. ATJ still looks hot as hell, but the movie around him is made to look substantially better simply by re-editing footage we’ve already seen and adding in some new, pretty sharp fight sequences—JC Chandor directs, so it SHOULD look pretty good—and by adding Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around” to the soundtrack. I’m not saying Kraven suddenly looks great, it doesn’t. But it looks less bad than it did before. It definitely looks better than the dreck Sony has cranked out in an effort to create their own superhero universe using Spider-Man’s second-string supporting players and villains.
But this is also what a good trailer can do. Most of this trailer is recycled from the first one, it’s just set to better music and edited better. If this was the first trailer for Kraven, I would be a little more excited for this film. But it isn’t the first trailer, I know that other trailer exists, and I know that this same footage minus the cool song isn’t as impressive. Thanks to the new trailer, Kraven looks better than Morbius and certainly Madame Web…but that isn’t saying much. I’m still not convinced we need these solo villain/anti-hero movies. I mean, I KNOW we don’t need them, but Sony is going to keep making them.
This trailer does, however, do a much better job selling the action in Kraven. Parts of this actually look cool, especially that sequence in the elevator bank. It’s stylish and well edited, here’s hoping that is more representative of the film than the bit with Rhino (played by Alessandro Nivola) smashing a truck. There’s also plenty of blood splattering around, a reminder that Kraven is, like Deadpool & Wolverine, also rated R. Kraven is now Sony’s big holiday release, they are undoubtedly hoping to tap into the “Marvel R” appetite created by Deadpool. Er…good luck.
You know what else comes out in December? Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, which also stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Busy month for ATJ!
