Spoiler Warning: Contains mild spoilers for Kraven The Hunter.

As the Marvel Cinematic Universe has a quieter period than usual and the DC Universe readies its James Gunn-led rebirth, Sony’s Spider-Man universe has been in full (web)-swing. Despite the wall-crawler being technically absent, the studio has been pulling out all the stops to have his villains and associates light up the multiplexes. 2024’s first quarter marked the arrival of Madame Web, and only a few months ago, the Venom franchise reached trilogy status with its latest entry, The Last Dance. But not content to stop there, Sony is set to release its third film this calendar year: Kraven the Hunter.

For those unfamiliar, Kraven is one of Spider-Man’s deadliest foes. He is a big-game hunter who has made it his mission to eliminate the hero so he can prove himself the greatest in his profession. He has been involved in comic books, animations, and Insomniac’s recent video game. Now, after once being considered for the Tobey Maguire and Tom Holland series, Sergei Kravinoff is getting the big-screen treatment. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who is no stranger to the superhero realm after previously portraying Quicksilver and Kick-Ass, is playing the titular role, while in the director’s chair is J.C. Chandor, who has built his name helming a plethora of stirring dramas, including Margin Call, All Is Lost, and A Most Violent Year.

As the Kraven team conducted their multi-country press tour, Supanova was granted the opportunity to ask Chandor a couple of questions about his adventure in amazing fantasy. We discussed what interested him about the property and whether he knows the answers to the common queries posed at his protagonist’s world.

Based on your body of work, it was surprising to hear Kraven would be your next venture. What attracted you to it?

“It was a bunch of things. At the time, we were in the middle of COVID, and I knew that I wanted to do something that was going to be theatrical and maybe help get people back into the movie theatres. The movie took a little longer to finish, but that was absolutely one of my goals. Then, most importantly, was the story. It sounds weird to say because my movies are all a little off, but I’m basically a genre filmmaker. I love to challenge myself and go into different genres and bring my point of view or my questioning to those. And I’ve got young — well, they’re not young anymore — I’ve got 19 and 14-year-old kids, so the last 15, 20 years have been pretty dominated by these films, and my first film experience I ever had in a theatre was Richard Donner’s Superman, so at some point, I was going to jump into this.”

“I had been offered a bunch of them over the years, but quite frankly, it was the idea that this character had never been put on film before, and it was a journey from innocence to a villain. That’s always been something I’m interested in: why people end up where they are. This character, in a fun way, allowed me to look at this genre of superheroes and villains and the black-and-white nature of that. I got five more days or something before people get to see the film, but I think when they see it, they’ll hopefully realise that it certainly can sit on the shelf next to any of my other films and make sense.”

Kraven is the newest addition to the SSU (Sony Spider-Man Universe). When you sign on to a project like this, do you know where he is going and how he fits into the broader plans?

“I actually started this film before some of the other films came out, but we’ve got the Rhino and a bunch of characters within Marvel in this film. I don’t want to get too into the conversations that you have or don’t have, but it is certainly something that strategically you do try to work out, obviously, in how you’re telling the story. For me, the simple thing is where this film goes and what we’re setting up; Aaron [Taylor-Johnson] and I have a plan. Whether that ends up happening or not depends more on the success of the movie than anything else. But I think what will be very clear, and what was always my North Star, is to make the best possible movie for the one that I have. That goes back to every movie I’ve ever done. You can sort of, at times, get lost. I remember with Margin Call, there were like five other movies about the stock market going on at that time, and you kind of have to put blinders on and be like, ‘If you make a great movie, it’s going to work itself out.'”

“I know for Aaron and I, ‘Kraven’s Last Hunt‘ has always been a real standout element to where this character ends up. The character is not even close to there yet; this is an origin story. When you get a chance to see the film, it very much starts with Kraven and Dmitri as teenagers and then moves into adulthood, so it really is a classic origin story in that way. What I’ve tried to do is set up this character to be ready to go out into the world, whatever world that ends up being. It feels like it is from the comic books. The comic books were also a North Star. So I hope those same fans that are quite critical will give the film a chance. They may not, but if they come out and see this film, they’ll realise we’ve actually been quite sophisticated in the way we’ve tried to tie all of our characters back to that canon. We’ll see; only time will tell.”

After being treated to some exclusive footage, J.C. had just one thing left to tell us.

“Go see it in the theatre. That’s its intent.”

Kraven the Hunter opens in Australian cinemas on December 12.