‘Kraven The Hunter’ Producer Says Spider-Man Spin-Off Moved To Christmas Because Sony Expects Audiences Will Want To Watch It “Over And Over Again”
In a revelation that can only be explained as either ‘outright delusion’ or ‘blatant marketing speak’, Kraven the Hunter producer Matt Tolmach has alleged that the film was given its new, recently-updated release date of Christmas Day because Sony wants to accommodate all the audiences they believe will be clamoring to watch the Spider-Man-less spin-off film “over and over again”.
Tolmach, who has served as a producer for Sony on every one of the wall-crawler’s solo and villain spin-off films since 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man, offered this baffling reasoning for Kraven‘s scheduling shuffle during a May 2024 interview given Collider‘s Steven Weintraub in promotion of his upcoming Apple TV+ series, Dark Matter.
Asked by Weintraub if he could provide any insight into the move, the producer explained, “Kraven moved to Christmas because we’re excited about it and Christmas is the best release period there is, when you get people with time to go back to the movies over and over again.”
“That was a real reflection of how the studio felt about the movie,” he added. “We’re really excited. But that’s a great move that reflects just the feeling about the movie.”
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Unfortunately for both Sony and Kraven, given the abysmal track-record of the studio’s thus-far attempts at launching a ‘Spider-Man-cinematic-universe-without-Spider-Man’, it’s unlikely that Tolmach’s above explanation will age well at all.
While the thus-far Venom duology managed to turn a profit, subsequent franchise entries Morbius and Madame Web have both gone done in history as two of the absolute worst box office flops of all time, the former failing to break even and the latter bombing to the tune of roughly $100 Million.
And given that Kraven, like Morbius and Madame Web before it, lacks a lead with as much of a presence in the overall cultural zeitgeist as Venom‘s titular protagonist, things are, to say the least, not looking good for the film’s box office potential.
But admittedly, the upcoming Spider-Man spin-off does have one thing going for it: At a time when fans are finding themselves fed up with Hollywood’s blatant disrespect for source material, star Aaron-Taylor Johnson’s has shown a genuine respect for the comic book incarnation of his character.
Asked during a 2022, Hero Magazine-hosted sit-down with fellow Sony Spider-franchise star Andrew Garfield as to how he approached his on-screen depiction of the feared hunter, Johnson explained, “You do come at it from another angle, which is back-to-front for me. It’s like you’re coming at it from the physical aspect, because that’s what you can see from a comic book.”
“You go, ‘Oh, he looks like that, so I have to look like that,’ he continued. “You see that and then you start to backtrack and dig deeper, and go, ‘This is where he originates from, then he has this relationship and that relationship…’ You just hope that you’re going to portray something that you can bring to life. There is, again, room for an interpretation and you want to be able to bring something and let it pop off the page.”
“It’s another new challenge, we talk about putting yourself under pressure all the time,” the actor concluded. “I don’t step away from controversial shit, I don’t know what it is, but I’m always drawn to the thing that might actually give me a f–king stroke!”
Further – unlike most of Marvel Studios’ creators – Johnson also admitted to Esquire in 2023 that while he considered himself ‘done’ with superhero films after appearing as Quicksilver in Avengers: Age of Ultron, he ultimately agreed to sign on to Kraven after finding himself enamored with J.M. DeMatteis’ seminal Spider-Man story, Kraven’s Last Hunt.
Acknowledging the character’s established canon, the actor asserted, “You can’t step into this role, you can’t step into what this franchise is, with a f–king half-assed, ‘Let’s see how it goes attitude. You have to be mentally prepared for what could come with that.”
Ultimately, whether Johnson’s apparent appreciation for the character will be enough to outweigh Sony’s clearly-proven inability to handle Spider-Man’s rogue’s gallery remains to be seen when Kraven the Hunter eventually lunges into theaters, as noted above, on Christmas Day.
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