Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Russell Crowe joins Sony’s Kraven the Hunter movie

By Jason Struss February 9, 2022

Sony’s superhero universe just got a little more crowded. The Hollywood Reporter announced today that Russell Crowe has joined the cast of Kraven the Hunter, the upcoming Spider-Man spinoff focusing on one of the Marvel hero’s major foes.

The casting announcement doesn’t detail which character Crowe will be playing, but it will most likely involve a lot of intense glaring and growling. Whatever role he plays, Crowe is a veteran of superhero movies, having memorably portrayed Superman’s father, Jor-El, in Man of Steel. He is also slated to play Zeus in the upcoming MCU movie Thor: Love and Thunder. Since Sony’s Spiderverse villain movies still exist in a separate continuity from the MCU’s, Crowe can be in both Thor and Kraven without too much conflict.

Kraven will be the fourth movie Sony has set up focusing on a Spider-Man supporting character. The first, Venom, was a worldwide hit, grossing nearly $900 million in 2018. Its 2020 sequel was also a success, grossing $500 million worldwide in a pandemic-challenged environment. The second, Morbius, has been floating around the release schedule for a couple of years now, with Sony eager to find the right time and place to launch it. That film, starring Jared Leto as the titular vampire antihero, is currently scheduled to release on April 1. Finally, Sony just announced a Madame Web movie with Dakota Johnson attached to star.

Kraven prepares for battle in the Amazing Spider-Man comic books. — Image used with permission by copyright holder

J.C. Chandor is scheduled to direct Kraven with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, another veteran of superhero films, portraying the Marvel villain. Matt Holloway, Art Marcum, and Matt Tolmach will write the screenplay. They have plenty to work with as Kraven has been around since 1964, when he debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man No. 15. Kraven was an original member of the Sinister Six and later played a key role in one of Spider-Man’s greatest stories, Kraven’s Last Hunt.

Currently, there is no release date announced for Kraven the Hunter.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Section Editor, Entertainment

Jason is a writer, editor, and pop culture enthusiast whose love for cinema, television, and cheap comic books has led him to…

Entertainment

Should Edgar Wright finally join the MCU and direct Ant-Man 4?

Hope and Scott share a moment in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

There's no way to sugarcoat it: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was not good. The film was a critical and commercial disappointment, continuing the MCU's current trend to deliver subpar efforts that further complicate the already shaky and convoluted Multiverse Saga. Quantumania had all the elements to succeed: Paul Rudd's charm, a thrilling premise -- on paper, anyway --, an interesting villain, Michelle Pfeiffer. Alas, the film wasted all this potential, offering a weird and confused story with awful CGI, absurd characters, and no real stakes, despite what its monologuing villain claimed.

Who's to blame for Quantumania's mediocrity? Screenwriter Jeff Loveness bears much of the blame, penning a weak story that squandered one of the MCU's most personable heroes and introduced the Multiverse Saga's Big Bad with a fizzle rather than a bang. However, I'd say director Peyton Reed is the true culprit here, especially because, after two movies, Reed should know better and have more control over these characters. The first two Ant-Man movies were nothing great, but they weren't this bad, right? Perhaps they were; we just were in such an MCU high that we either didn't notice or gave them a pass.

Entertainment

Sony’s Spider-Man movies and Venom finally come to Disney+

Spider-Man crawling on the side of a skyscraper in a poster for "Spider-Man" (2002).

Disney+ has often billed itself as "the home of Marvel," and the streaming service has already reclaimed its original series from Netflix, as well as the R-rated Fox movies Deadpool, Deadpool 2, and Logan, to shore up its lineup. Now, the most iconic Marvel hero of them all is coming home. Disney+ has announced that multiple Spider-Man movies and the first Venom film are coming to the service this spring.

Starting tomorrow, Friday, April 21, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy will make its debut on Disney+. These are the films that helped jump-start modern superhero cinema, and the first two, Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, rank among the greatest comic book flicks ever made. Spider-Man 3 isn't quite as beloved, nor is 2012's reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man. Regardless, both will also be on Disney+ tomorrow.

Entertainment

5 things we want to see in Amazon’s Spider-Man Noir series

Spider-Man Noir in "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse."

Variety has revealed that Sony is now producing a live-action series about Spider-Man Noir exclusively for Amazon Prime Video. The series will reportedly "follow an older, grizzled superhero in 1930s New York City" and be set in its own universe, but Peter Parker will not be the main character. This show will feature Spider-Man Noir's first appearance in live-action, which follows the character's big-screen debut in the animated film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

In case everyone's not up to speed, the Spider-Man Noir comics follow a variant of Peter Parker living in the 1930s, who gets bitten by a spider found inside a mystical artifact, gaining superpowers after having visions of a spider god. Watching the web-slinger fight crime in a Depression-era setting will make for a unique television event, to say the least. But if Sony wishes for this show and their cinematic universe as a whole to succeed, they need to deliver on a list of things that viewers want to see out of Spider-Man Noir.
Variants of classic characters