The Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters continues to expand despite still only having released one film, but it’s hard to argue against Kraven the Hunter as one of the most exciting projects on the docket for the nascent shared mythology.
J.C. Chandor has helmed a series of acclaimed movies in a number of different genres including financial thriller Margin Call, survival story All is Lost, crime drama A Most Violent Year and heist actioner Triple Frontier, so he’s clearly a talented and versatile filmmaker. Casting the lead role was always going to be the key ingredient, though, and the appointment of Aaron Taylor-Johnson could turn out to be an inspired choice given the actor’s own ability to disappear into a number of wildly disparate characters.
Kraven is coming to the big screen in January 2023, so more plot details and members of the team on either side of the camera should be getting announced shortly. Until then, a new rumor has pegged another classic Spider-Man villain as an addition to the ensemble, with Chameleon said to play a major role in the story.
If the man born Dmitri Smerdyakov is indeed set to join the SPUMC, then the most obvious plot thread to pull on would be the comic book revelation that he and Sergei Kravinoff are half-brothers, which could either set them on a collision course or have them forge an alliance to defeat a shared threat.
Not only that, but having Chameleon in Kraven the Hunter throws another potential candidate in the mix for Sony’s inevitable Sinister Six spinoff, one that would deepen the connective tissue throughout the studio’s ambitious plans to exist on the fringes of cinema’s other Marvel universe.