Sony is back on the prowl for a successful Peter Parker-free Spider-Man movie. The studio has dropped a bloody new trailer for its latest Spidey villain standalone film, Kraven the Hunter. Will this entry in the series find box office success without everyone’s favorite friendly neighborhood superhero around? That remains to be seen, but this action-packed look at the movie makes two things very clear. The first is that we should expect a whole lot of gore from this R-rated film. The second is that we’re finally going to get a version of Rhino worthy of the big screen.
You can watch the full Kraven the Hunter trailer below.
Johnny Cash and a guy getting murdered with a bear trap? We have our doubts about this movie, but not about either of those aspects. We’re also in on Alessandro Nivola’s Aleksei Sytsevich, who we see turn into a much more terrifying version of Rhino than we briefly got with Paul Giamatti in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
This trailer also makes clear Kraven the Hunter won’t look or feel like a typical superhero story. Even Tom Hardy’s Venom films have a comic-book feel. This looks more like a war movie, almost. That could ultimately help it stand out from Sony’s other Spider-Man-related films, but it comes with obvious risks, too.
What exactly is happening with one of Peter Parker’s most famous villains? In addition to Kraven the Hunter‘s trailer, here’s the film’s official synopsis:
Kraven the Hunter is the visceral, action-packed origin story of how and why one of Marvel’s most iconic villains came to be. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Kraven, a man whose complex relationship with his ruthless father, Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe), starts him down a path of vengeance with brutal consequences, motivating him to become not only the greatest hunter in the world, but also one of its most feared.
Kraven the Hunter comes from director J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year). It also stars Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger, and Christopher Abbott. It’ll go hunting for an audience ( after many delays) this December. If it finds its prey Kraven might then get to go hunting for Peter Parker.