Kraven The Hunter Film Closes In On Reality With Screenwriter Richard Wenk
by Erik Amaya
Get your Kravans ready. Marvel Comics’ Kraven the Hunter may get a Sony Pictures film all his own.
Collider reports writer Richard Wenk will adapt the character in his own feature film as part of the studio’s ever expanding Spider-Man-less Spider-Verse. Created by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee in The Amazing Spider-Man #15, Sergei Kravinoff was the son of Russian aristocrats who immigrated to the US in 1917 as their country was swept up in the Soviet tide. Growing up with his family’s wealth and resources in tact, Sergei became a big game hunter. But unlike most people who choose that peculiar way of life, he learned to fight the animals he hunts with his bare hands.
Desiring to be the best hunter on the planet, he decided to hunt the rarest of all game: Spider-Man. It lead to a longstanding feud between the characters until Sergei died in 1987’s “Kraven’s Last Hunt.” He subsequently returned and, in recent years, befriended Squirrel Girl, protected the Savage Land from poachers and tooled around Manhattan in the “Kravan.”
The character has appeared in numerous animated shows and video games, but never managed to become part of a live-action Spider-Man film. He was teased in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as part of the sequel’s plot set up a potential Sinister Six film. But following the critical beating of that film, Sony’s plans to expand their own Marvel universe stalled. With the success of Spider-Man: Homecoming, the studio believes it can launch that Spider-verse despite the lack of its titular hero.
According to Collider, Kraven, a proposed Morbius the Living Vampire film with Jared Leto and a film featuring Black Cat and Silver Sable are all on Sony’s schedule, but remain in a tenuous state pending the release of October’s Venom. Should the film underperform or bomb entirely, the Spider-verse may wither away before it has begun.
