In a declaration that will have to be seen to be believed, Kraven The Hunter director J.C. Chandor says that while Sony’s Spider-Man spin-offs have an admittedly terrible reputation, he hopes fans will be able to “wash away” some of this grime and give his film a legitimate chance.
Chandor, whose prior filmography includes such films as Margin Call, A Most Violent Year, and Triple Frontier, made this lofty claim during a recent interview with ComicBook.com‘s David Harth.
Asked by his host as to his thoughts on the poor reception of past entries in Sony’s ‘Spider-Man-universe-without-Spider-Man’ and whether or not he feared that their failures would affect Kraven‘s box office potential, Chandor asserted, “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 cinematic universe].
“Then with other films, they’ve gone on to be tremendous successes,” he continued. “So there’s been there’s been a mixed success rate. 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.”
Putting a final stamp to his thoughts, Chandor added, “And 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.”
Interestingly, Chandor is not the first member of Kraven‘s production team to make such an overtly optimistic boast regarding the film’s contents.
Pressed during a May 2024 interview with Collider‘s Steven Weintraub as to the reason behind the film’s fourth (and thus far final) delay to its current December 13th, 2024 release date, producer Matt Tolmach bafflingly declared, “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 said. “We’re really excited. But that’s a great move that reflects just the feeling about the movie.”
Suffice to say, despite the best attempts by Chandor and Tolmach, the previous disasters that were Madame Web, Venom: The Last Dance, and Morbius have ensured that fans are unlikely to have any faith in Kraven‘s quality until they actually see it themselves.
To this end, for those moviegoers willing to take a gamble on its quality, the Spider-Man foe’s solo film is currently on track, as noted above, to tear its way into theaters on December 13th.
NEXT: New ‘Kraven The Hunter’ Trailer Changes Kraven’s Origins, Gives Him Superpowers