Sony's Spider-Man Universe (the "SSU") has failed to live up to expectations. While the Venom movies have been box office hits, the trilogy didn't receive an overly warm response from fans or critics and both Morbius and Madame Web were disasters on every level.
With that in mind, it's hardly a surprise that excitement for Kraven the Hunter is muted at best. Most fans expect another Sony Marvel movie that fails to do right by the comic books, questioning why Kraven - one of Spider-Man's greatest villains - is getting the solo outing treatment rather than being saved for a future battle with the web-slinger.
Talking to ComicBook.com, Kraven the Hunter director J.C. Chandor reflected on the mixed response to the SSU movies that have preceded his and asked fans to give this long-delayed adventure a chance.
"I don’t want to get too into the nitty-gritty of it, but here’s what I would say: for me as a filmmaker, my number one goal, especially, quite frankly, over the last couple of years where you guys are deep in this world...some of the fans out there, a lot of the fans, were upset with certain decisions and certain outcomes [of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe]," the filmmaker acknowledged.
"Then with other films, they’ve gone on to be tremendous successes. So there’s been there’s been a mixed success rate," he continued. "People have got to give us a chance and come out and support this film, and literally try to wash away some of the other stuff that’s happened. Give our film a chance."
Chandor added, "I think they’ll realize that we’ve done everything we can to give them a pretty fun story. You’ll see when the movie’s over, there’s potential for a lot of things to happen. But my goal was to isolate our movie, protect it, and just tell a good damn story. And then we’ll have opportunities to do a lot of fun things."
This explains why Sony has recently started promoting Kraven the Hunter as a "standalone" tale, though the same thing happened with Madame Web and we all know how that went.
There's a chance Chandor will deliver a solid effort here, but with fans eager to see Kraven battle Spider-Man in place of a mutant Rhino, it's going to be a challenge convincing them to spend money on another of these movies.
Kraven the Hunter is the action-packed, R-rated, standalone story of how one of Marvel’s most iconic villains came to be. The cast is led by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger, Alessandro Nivola, Christopher Abbott, and Russell Crowe.
Kraven the Hunter arrives in theaters on December 13.