Long before Venom‘s record-breaking debut weekend, Sony had already begun plans to expand their universe of Spider-Man spinoffs. Most of these plans sound like rehashed ideas from the Andrew Garfield era, including a film centered on Sinister Six member, Kraven the Hunter. Unlike Venom who has been fine operating independently from Spider-Man, that really can’t be said about Kraven, which makes this quite the unusual project. So how does writer Richard Wenk plan to get around not having the wallcrawler to use in his movie? Simple, he doesn’t.
Wenk, who is probably best known for writing The Equalizer movies for Denzel Washington, tells Discussing Film that he plans for Kraven to encounter Spider-Man. Uhhh…how’s he going to pull that off with Tom Holland killin’ it over in the MCU?
“It is in the Spider-Man Universe. 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, just beginning the process. And because it’s a big IP in the Marvel world, there’s a lot of hurdles to overcome before you can start writing. To crack the right story. To get the right tone.”
Uh, maybe he didn’t get the memo? No crossing over with Spider-Man…for now? If it wasn’t going to happen in Venom it certainly won’t with Kraven, so maybe Wenk is just screwing with fans and the journos who he knows will post stories just like the one I’m posting now? I suppose it’s possible Sony could cast an all-new, all-different version of Spider-Man that isn’t Peter Parker? Maybe Ben Reilly? Miles Morales? I don’t know, but Wenk sounds pretty confident.
He goes on to say that potential storylines include a take on Kraven’s Last Stand, the iconic Marvel tale which finds the big game hunter actually defeating and killing Spider-Man. Temporarily, of course.
“I think what we’re all circling is the infamous ‘Kraven’s Last Hunt’ and whether this is the precursor to that movie or whether it will include it. We’re talking about those things. Or maybe the idea that ‘Kraven’ could be like ‘Kill Bill’ where we’re basically writing two movies. It’s all in the mix.”
Clearly the Kraven movie is in the earliest stages, but it sounds a lot more interesting now than it did before. Mission accomplished, Mr. Wenk.
