Directed by J. C. Chandor from a screenplay by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, the film stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the title role, alongside Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger, Alessandro Nivola, Christopher Abbott, and Russell Crowe.
Produced by Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel Entertainment, it is the sixth film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU).
Additional cast members joined in early 2022 before filming took place from late March until mid-June in London, Iceland, and Glasgow.
Following the death of his mother, Sergei Kravinoff and his half-brother Dmitri are taken by their father Nikolai to prepare to take over his drug trafficking operations.
The lion then brings him to a girl named Calypso, who heals him with a serum and calls for rescue, leaving a tarot card behind.
When Nikolai reveals he killed the lion to teach his sons a lesson, a disgusted Sergei flees to a sanctuary owned by his mother in Russia.
Meanwhile, Dmitri meets the man behind his kidnapping, Aleksei Sytsevich, who took part in an experiment granting him the strength and visage of a rhinoceros.
Having gained shapeshifting abilities from the doctor who experimented on Aleksei,[a] Dmitri reveals this to Kraven, disowning him, stating that despite his claims of being morally superior, he and Nikolai were the same: hunters searching for their next great trophy.
At home, Kraven discovers a note from Nikolai along with a vest made from the skin of the killed lion from long ago, which he puts on.
[29] Richard Wenk was hired to write a screenplay for Kraven the Hunter in August 2018, a month after the successful release of Sony's The Equalizer 2 (2018), which he wrote.
Wenk said Sony intended to adapt the Kraven's Last Hunt (1987) comic book storyline, and there were ongoing discussions over whether to do that in this film or a later one.
[35][36] At that time, J. C. Chandor entered talks to direct the film,[35] while Matt Tolmach, Avi Arad, and David Householter were set as producers.
[35][37] Chandor was confirmed as director in May 2021, when Aaron Taylor-Johnson was cast to star as Kraven,[6] and signed on to portray the character in multiple films.
[51] In August 2022, Nivola revealed that the film would include a time jump and that his character would physically transform in the third act, for which he did not use any visual effects.
[63] Chandor felt that the delays allowed him to "sharpen" the characters and "tighten" the plot, deeming the reshoots strategic and effective.
[72] Kraven the Hunter was theatrically released in the United States on December 13, 2024, in IMAX and premium large formats (PLFs).
[4][5] In the United States and Canada, Kraven the Hunter was released alongside The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, and was projected to gross $13–15 million from 3,211 theaters in its opening weekend.
The website's consensus reads: "Claiming no trophies with its rote story and shoddy special effects, Kraven the Hunter turns out to be a paper tiger.
"[78] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 35 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.
[74][80] Lyvie Scott of Inverse wrote, "A clunky, crowded script, muddy visual effects, and glaringly obvious ADR bog down a promising premise.
"[81] The Daily Telegraph's Tim Robey gave it one out of five stars, writing, "Last orders can't come soon enough for the whole parade of supervillains, superheroes, or however they're now choosing to identify.
"[82] Ian Freer of Empire gave it two out of five stars, writing, "This all feels a long way from Chandor's glory days of Margin Call and All Is Lost.
"[83] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian also gave it 2 out of 5 stars, saying that Chandor "does a serviceable job, but the delirious craziness that once made the superhero genre so watchable is not really in evidence.
"[84] The Hindu's Gopinath Rajendran wrote, "Not only is the wafer-thin plot painfully predictable but the secondary characters, despite being played by able performers, such [sic] Academy Award-winner Ariana DeBose, are reduced to one-dimensional muppets who add little to the overall narrative.
"[86] Adam Graham of The Detroit News said the film "is far from the cream of the crop in the superhero space, but non-discerning comic book fans may appreciate the spoils of this bounty" and gave it a C+ grade.
"[88] Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra blamed critics for Kraven the Hunter's box office failure, insisting that audiences who saw the film loved it and comparing it to the Netflix viewing numbers that Madame Web (2024) received.
One particularly notable sequence where Nivola's character makes an odd guttural scream was acknowledged by the actor as being Internet meme-worthy.