Sony Pictures shocked fans on Monday by releasing the first eight minutes of Kraven the Hunter for free on YouTube and social media. The “Sonyverse” movie will close out the year when it hits theaters on Friday, December 13th. You can get a head start on the opening scene below.
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Kraven the Hunter is the latest entry in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU), a franchise that runs parallel to the Marvel Cinematic Universe with uncertain connections at the time of this writing. It stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson as big-game hunter and conservationist Sergei Kravinoff – a.k.a. Kraven. We haven’t learned much about the plot so far, but this preview clip now tells us that we first meet Sergei as a prisoner being transported to a new facility.
The whole introduction is in Russian, which Taylor-Johnson speaks well despite being from England himself. There’s no telling how much of the movie will be this way, though the trailer shows us plenty of English-language dialogue. Still, it seems like a lot of the movie may take place in Russia, serving as an origin story for a character we haven’t seen much on screen before.
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In Marvel Comics, Kraven is typically depicted as the eccentric son of a Russian aristocrat who fled the country during the rise of communism. He is trained by a mysterious hunter named Gregor and drinks some kind of mystical serum which gives him super strength and slows his aging. He then becomes obsessed with hunting powerful creatures and taking them down with his bare hands to prove his strength, which is how he eventually sets his sights on Spider-Man.
Kraven‘s Remaining Mysteries
We already knew this version of the character would be different – Taylor-Johnson described him as a conservationist and an animal lover, and the trailer seemed to depict him going after crime bosses as penance for his father’s actions. We get more clues in this opening scene, where Kraven is apparently regarded as an urban legend among Russian criminals. He posed as a convict and infiltrated that prison just to get to a gang leader working from inside. He then used his powers to escape with ease, and we saw from his getaway that he is not working alone.
There are many mysteries left to unravel in the movie itself, which is a relief in an age where trailers often over-share and give away too much. This sneak peek may be enough to get more viewers interested without showing us everything Kraven has to offer, and of course many fans will turn up just hoping for a connection to the MCU’s Multiverse Saga. Kraven the Hunter will be out on Friday, December 13th only in theaters.