Kevin Smith Praises Kraven the Hunter Trailer, "You Have My Attention"

Sony dropped the first trailer for the Aaron Taylor-Johnson starring Kraven the Hunter last month, surprising fans with the first footage from the R-rated Spider-Man Universe spinoff. The trailer gave fans just a taste of the "grounded heavily in the real world" film that Taylor-Johnson promised at CinemaCon back in April, complete with plenty of violence for the iconic Marvel villain and it has certainly gotten a lot of attention — including that of Kevin Smith. During the latest episode of his FatMan Beyond podcast, Smith said that Kraven the Hunter has his attention — and the trailer is "better than it had any right to be".

"That trailer was better than it had any right to be," Smith said. "When they announced a Kraven movie, I was like 'why are they doing this?' But I saw that trailer I was like 'it's John Wick, he's just killing f-ckers left and right."

He continued, "I had zero expectations for Kraven and I saw that trailer and I'm like, 'I'm interested. You have my attention. "

What is Kraven the Hunter About?

According to Sony, "Kraven the Hunter is the visceral story about how and why one of Marvel's most iconic villains came to be. Set before his notorious vendetta with Spider-Man, Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars as the titular character in the R-rated film."

The film is the fourth film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe, which includes Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and Morbius. Madame Web is expected to hit theaters in 2024.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson Says His Take on Kraven Will Be Faithful to Comics

When we spoke with Taylor-Johnson last year, the actor said his take on the character will remain faithful to the comic books, even though Spider-Man doesn't make his presence felt in the film.

"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," Taylor-Johnson previously told ComicBook.com. "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."

In addition to Taylor-Johnson's eponymous hunter, the film will also feature Rhino (The Many Saints of Newark's Alessandro Nivola), the horn-headed supervillain otherwise known as Aleksei Sytsevich. Taylor-Johnson leads a cast that includes Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) as Calypso, the priestess and Kraven's love interest who has served as a Spider-Man villain in her own right; Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus) as Kraven's half-brother, Dmitri Smerdyakov, the masked master of disguise called the Chameleon; and Russell Crowe (Gladiator) as Kraven and Dmitri's father, Nikolai Kravinoff.

Kraven the Hunter roars into theaters October 6th.