Kraven the Hunter producer Matt Tolmach reveals why Sony‘s Spider-Man Universe spinoff movie was delayed from August to December of 2024.
“Kraven moved to Christmas because we’re excited about it, and Christmas is the best release period there is when you get people with time to go back to the movies over and over again,” Tolmach said in an interview with Collider. “That was a real reflection of how the studio felt about the movie. We’re really excited. But that’s a great move that reflects just the feeling about the movie.”
Before Sony slotted the movie to the holiday season, the R-rated Kraven starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson saw its release date shift more than once. Originally slated for a January 13th, 2023 release, Kraven was pushed back to October of that same year before getting delayed almost an entire year to August 30th, 2024. With the new December date, Kraven will hit cinemas just two months after Venom: The Last Dance‘s October 25th release.
Kraven the Hunter will loosely take influence from the storyline “Kraven’s Last Hunt” published in the pages of Marvel Comics from October to November 1987. The storyline follows Sergei Kravinoff/Kraven wanting to eliminate the Wall Crawler before his impending death. He kills Spider-Man and impersonates him in the costume to prove his superiority until Spidey gets revived from the effects of a tranquilizer dart. Once Kraven proves his point, he reflects on his life before shooting himself to death.
Directed by J.C. Chandor and written by Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, and Richard Wenk, Kraven the Hunter stars Johnson as the titular warrior antihero raised into a killer by his estranged father (Russell Crowe). Kraven will feature some familiar Spider-Man villains, including Calypso (Ariana DeBose), Dmitri Smerdyakov / Chameleon (Fred Hechinger), and Aleksei Sytsevich / Rhino (Alessandro Nivola). Tolmach serves as producer alongside Avi Arad and David Householter.
Kraven the Hunter is scheduled for release on December 13th.