Kraven the Hunter Trailer Released at CinemaCon

The hunt is over for the first look at Kraven the Hunter. Sony Pictures debuted the first trailer for the Spider-Man Universe spin-off during the studio's presentation at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Monday night, revealing Bullet Train's Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the world's greatest hunter: Sergei Kravinoff. ComicBook was in attendance for the exclusive sneak peek at the upcoming chapter in the SSU, in theaters October 6th, joining Sony's web of Marvel Comics adaptations Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Morbius, and 2024 releases El Muerto and Madame Web. While the trailer will not be released to the public until the summer, you can check out an exclusive description of the footage below.

"Kraven the Hunter is a Marvel movie grounded heavily in the real world," Taylor-Johnson said in a video message introducing the first footage. "Anyone who's familiar with comics and the character of Kraven the Hunter knows that he is a fierce hunter, a skilled, highly-trained killer. So I think now's a good time to answer the Internet's biggest question: Will it be rated R? F— yes, it's going to be R." 

In the footage, armed mercenaries have a stand off with Kraven, wearing a sleeveless brown leather vest. "You can't count for shit. There's six of us. One of you." 

"There's six of you now," Kraven says, standing his ground. The lead mercenary orders his men to "run this f—er over." In a bloody sequence, a savage Kraven leaps into the truck and kills the trespassers, sinking his teeth into the driver's nose and ripping it off. 

In a flashback, Kraven's father (Russell Crowe) instills life lessons in his son. "My son, everything on this Earth lives by consuming something else. They are prey. We are predators."

In the present day, Kraven races through the streets of London with superhuman speed. THIS FALL, NO ONE SURVIVES THE HUNT. 

"You think you're some kind of hunter? Some kind of code? You're just another man hunting for a trophy. Exactly like our father," says Kraven's brother, an unmasked Dmitri. "I'm nothing like him," Kraven replies. 

A jungle sequence shows Kraven hunting his prey: humans. Elsewhere, Kraven wears a leather jacket with fur collar. He guns down a man with a crossbow, pinning him to the wall. Calypso calls Kraven "a goddamn lunatic." Kraven smirks. "You're just figuring that out now?" 

"There is an animal in each one of us," says a mystery man. "Don't you want to know why they call me the Rhino?" His human arm transforms into the protective skin of a rhinoceros. An animalistic roar ends the trailer, which will release online and in theaters this summer.

J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year, Triple Frontier) is directing the film written by Richard Wenk (The Equalizer 3) and duo Art Marcum & Matt Holloway (Marvel Studios' Iron Man, Sony's Uncharted), based on the Marvel character created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1964's Amazing Spider-Man #15.

Along with Taylor-Johnson, the Kraven cast includes Oscar winner Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) as the spell-binding priestess Calypso and Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus) as Dmitri Smerdyakov, Sergei's half-brother and a master of disguise known as the Chameleon. Rounding out the cast are Christopher Abbott (A Most Violent Year), Alessandro Nivola (Boston Strangler), Levi Miller (A Wrinkle in Time), and Best Actor Oscar winner Russell Crowe (Gladiator).

In the comics, Kraven is a master hunter obsessed with defeating his archenemy the Spider — the wall-crawling superhero Spider-Man — pursuing his prey with herbal potions that grant him superhuman strength, speed, and stamina. Taylor-Johnson has described his Kraven as a "protector of the natural world" and a "conservationist."

"He is a hunter and from that world of hunting and there's so many aspects [to him]. What I love about that character is that he has flaws," the actor told ComicBook. "Kraven is a beautiful character. Sergei Kravinov is a beautiful character because it's someone who's really understanding themselves and has flaws. This is a character that was built ages ago and it's in a new time and era, but yeah, is he going to be the hunter that we all want to see? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely."

Sony's Kraven the Hunter opens only in theaters October 6th. See all the latest news out of CinemaCon 2023.