Kraven the Hunter Will Be Sony’s First R-Rated Marvel Movie

Actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who plays the title role in Kraven the Hunter, revealed in a pre-taped greeting to CinemaCon 2023 that it will be Sony’s first R-rated Marvel movie. The studio’s Spider-Man and Venom movies as well as Morbius have all been rated PG-13.

Sony presented a roughly two-minute teaser trailer from Kraven exclusively for CinemaCon attendees, meaning it won’t be released online. The footage has tons of gruesome kills in it as Kraven takes out poachers and mercs, think Logan, Rambo or John Wick-levels of bloody violence.

The footage showed Russell Crowe as the Russian father of Taylor-Johnson’s Sergei Kravinoff (he speaks in an American accent). The very end of the footage reveals Alessandro Nivola is playing the Rhino. The skin on his arm starts to transform into rhino skin. There’s also a very brief shot of Sergei holding up the classic fur costume Kraven wore in the Marvel comics.

Whether Kraven the movie will, like Morbius, connect in any way to Sony’s larger Spider-Man franchise remains to be seen.

Kraven the Hunter debuted in Marvel Comics’ Amazing Spider-Man #15. He considered himself the greatest hunter in the world and deemed the wall-crawler the ultimate prey to catch. Taylor-Johnson previously said he liked playing Kraven because he’s “not an alien, or a wizard. He’s just a hunter, a human with conviction. An animal lover and a protector of the natural world.” 

The actor also called Kraven “one of Marvel’s most iconic, notorious anti-heroes” and “Spider-Man’s number one rival.”

The cast of Kraven includes Ariana DeBose as Calypso and Fred Hechinger as Dmitri Smerdyakov/ Chameleon, a master of disguise who also just so happens to be Kraven’s half-brother in the comics. Russell Crowe, Alessandro Nivola, Christopher Abbott, and Levi Miller also star.

J.C. Chandor (Triple Frontier) directs Kraven from a screenplay by Art Marcum & Matt Holloway and Richard Wenk. The film is scheduled to open in cinemas on October 6, 2023.

For more on Kraven the Hunter, be sure to read our explainer on his bloody history with Spider-Man.