‘Kraven the Hunter’ Movie to Include Spider-Man, Draw Inspiration From “Last Hunt”

News broke earlier this summer that Kraven the Hunter would be getting his own film in Sony’s universe of Spider-Man spinoffs, with The Equalizer writer Richard Wenk attached to pen the script. The writer recently confirmed initial details about the film, which includes a direct encounter with Spider-Man as well as influences from the seminal storyline “Kraven’s Last Hunt.”

“I’m just starting it. It’s an interesting world. A great character,” Wenk shared with DiscussingFilm. “It’s going to adhere very closely to the lore of Kraven the Hunter. And he is going to come face to face with Spider-Man. I’m just beginning it, beginning the process, and because it’s a big IP, Marvel world, there’s lots of hurdles to overcome before you can start writing, to crack the right story and to get the right tone. It’s a new world for me. But what’s nice about it is it’s a very grounded character, he doesn’t have a lot of crazy superpowers and things like that so he’s more grounded and that fits what I like to do. That’s as much as I know.”

It might seem like a given that Kraven would combat Spider-Man in his solo film, though this past weekend’s release of Venom showed audiences that a film focusing on a Spider-Man villain doesn’t necessarily require the Wall-Crawler himself to show up.

Wenk went on to detail that, as he’s in the beginning stages of developing the film, he’s looking to all corners of Kraven’s history to find the right story to tell.

“You have to look at everything just to soak it in,” the writer noted. “I think that what we’re all circling is ‘Kraven’s Last Hunt’ and whether this is the precursor to that movie or will include it. We’re talking about those things. And even the idea that maybe Kraven could be like Kill Bill where we’re basically writing two movies.”

The storyline of that arc features Kraven setting his sights on Spider-Man to prove he is superior to the hero, ultimately neutralizing him and stealing his costume to impersonate the hero on the streets of New York City. Peter Parker eventually comes to, weeks later, and Kraven hands the costume over, taking pride in having beaten Parker. The arc ends with Kraven killing himself so, with this being the character’s first appearance in a live-action film, the film likely won’t follow the storyline exactly.

“It’s all in the mix, everybody is excited about it because everybody wants to make the right movie and the classic movie and nobody’s rushing to churn out some character movie because it’s part of that world,” Wenk admitted. “It’s nice to see everybody hunker down and say, ‘What is the right movie to tell?’ It’s an origin story, obviously, so it’ll be the first time people will see Kraven, and not the last, but it will be the first one. You just throw everything up on the wall and see the right movie to tell.”

The producers of Venom have already admitted that their next spinoff will be Morbius, shooting as early as February, so we shouldn’t expect Kraven to come together until the middle of next year at the earliest.

Do Wenk’s remarks have you excited for the Kraven film? Let us know in the comments below!

[H/T YouTube, DiscussingFilm]