The news that Triple Frontier director J.C. Chandor had entered talks to helm Kraven the Hunter for Sony as part of their own cinematic universe took a lot of people by surprise, mostly because they were expecting the character to be the primary antagonist of the MCU’s Spider-Man 3.
Ever since Homecoming and Far From Home‘s Jon Watts admitted that he’d love to bring Sergei Kravinoff into the franchise at some point in the future, it seemed almost inevitable that the big game hunter was set to be the villain of Peter Parker’s next outing, especially when rumors started making the rounds that Marvel were looking for a Joel Kinnaman-type to play an unspecified role that many assumed to be Kraven.
The talk surrounding Kraven has been so strong, in fact, that barely any other bad guys have even been mentioned in terms of being Spider-Man’s next adversary. However, one of the names that has been floated in the past is Doctor Octopus, with Javier Bardem reportedly under consideration. And while Kraven could theoretically still appear in the upcoming threequel, attention has now turned towards Doc Ock, with some new fan art from Jackson Caspersz imagining how the Academy Award winner would look as Otto Octavius.
So far, the MCU’s Spider-Man series has made a point of using villains that haven’t been seen in live-action before, and Doc Ock was famously played by Alfred Molina in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, which is still regarded as one of the greatest comic book movies ever made. Bardem is a phenomenal actor, though, with Skyfall and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales already showing that he’s not against the idea of chewing the scenery in one of Hollywood’s marquee franchises.
The 51 year-old would no doubt be a solid choice for the part if Marvel end up heading in that direction. But for now, we’ll just have to be patient until the studio gives us some firm confirmation on who the villain(s) of the film will be.