Sony Pictures hasn't had the best of luck recently when it comes to their standalone films for various Spider-Man-related characters, with Morbius and Madame Web falling extremely short at the box office and with critics. It remains to be seen if Kraven the Hunter will suffer the same fate, thought it appears Sony may have some faith in it despite a disappointing release update.
The studio announced several changes to its 2024 and 2025 release calendar, including its brand new Karate Kid film and the Blumhouse horror film They Listen. One of the most significant changes, though, was to Kraven the Hunter as Sony's latest Marvel film was pushed back from its previously announced August 30, 2024, release date to December 13, 2024, according to Variety.
It was previously delayed from October 2023 to August 2024 due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes that dominated Hollywood for a large part of 2023.
Kraven is still set to play on IMAX and other large premium formats when it releases, and the delay into the Christmas release window suggests Sony feels the film could still be a hit. It has become more common for tentpole releases to hit theaters during this holiday period thanks, in part, to the massive success of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015.
While this window was much quieter for 2023 in terms of box office success, the Timothee Chalamet-led Wonka still proved to be a big hit at the holidays with a total box office of around $632 million.
No Spiders in this Web
There is still some concern, though, that Kraven could be one of the proverbial “last gasps” for Sony's attempts to build its own shared universe of Marvel films using the Spider-Man-related characters they have available. The two Tom Hardy-led Venom films have been the only successful releases during this time with a combined box office of around $1.362 billion.
The third Venom film, Venom: The Last Dance, is slated to release in theaters on October 25, 2024, and is expected to be Tom Hardy's last outing as Eddie Brock and his Symbiote-powered alter-ego.
By comparison, the combined box offices for Morbius and Madame Web did not even break $300 million at the worldwide box office.
Kraven the Hunter's chances of success did not start off well, though, after the release of the first trailer in June 2023. Fans were quick to criticize the film for many of the changes it made to Kraven's character, with some online suggesting Russell Crowe's character was more like the original character from the comic's than Aaron Taylor-Johnson's.
Kraven the Hunter will follow the titular character Sergei Kravenoff, a former-big game hunter who was left for dead by his father during a failed hunt as a teenager. Instead, he developed a connection to wildlife and abilities as a result, which he intends to use to bring down the criminal empire of his father, portrayed by Russell Crowe.
Kraven the Hunter is scheduled to release in theaters on December 13, 2024.
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