Kraven the Hunter is coming to cinemas in less than two weeks – but if you can’t wait that long, you can watch its surprisingly brutal eight-minute opening sequence online now.
It’s been… a year for Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (without Spider-Man). Madame Web bombed with fans and critics alike, while Venom 3 ended Tom Hardy’s trilogy with the worst reviews of the series – and yet, it’s still grossed nearly $470 million worldwide.
The studio will cap off 2024 with Kraven the Hunter, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the titular villain in an R-rated origin story, chronicling how the son of a Russian gangster became one of the most formidable hunters in the world (and I’m not just talking about big game).
It’s definitely earned some skepticism (Sony’s Marvel movies have yet to achieve a positive Rotten Tomatoes score, and many people are against another movie about a Spidey villain without the wall-crawler), so Sony has released the first eight minutes for free.
Kraven the Hunter murders three people and escapes a Russian prison
It’s a tense opening sequence. It starts with Kraven on a prison convoy to a Russian penal colony in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by endless snow.
As he walks into the prison, he doesn’t look phased by the taunting of the other inmates. He meets his cellmate, who tells him he’d rather be alone. “We have something in common already,” Kraven says.
He offers the prisoner a deal: if Kraven is there any longer than three days, he can “take his best shot.” He smiles and agrees (but they aren’t friends; he doesn’t let him sit with him at lunch).
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Sometime over those next few days, he attracts the hostility of two goons when he works out in a “private” area of the yard. He makes light work of them (he uses his super-strength to benchpress them and slams their head off the bar), and then he’s taken to meet their boss.
His name is Seymon Chorney, the chief of the Kirov gang and an arms dealer whose guns “kill thousands of men, women, and kids all over the world.”
Kraven explains that he haunts people like him, and he dismisses his claim as a myth. Moments later, Kraven breaks one man’s back over his knee, lobs another guy at a wall, and presses a table against Seymon before holding a tiger tooth to his neck.
“There’s an ounce of truth in every myth,” he says, before stabbing him to death and making a quick escape (with some incredible stunt work by Johnson). He flees the prison and runs into the middle of a blizzard, where a plane is waiting for him.
Kraven the Hunter’s director, JC Chandor, has pleaded with fans to “give the film a chance.” If you’re convinced by that footage, it’s in cinemas from December 13.
You can also check out our list of the best movies of 2024 and the best superhero movies of all time.
