There’s a saying among filmmakers about comedy movies: you can’t keep them on the shelf for long or else they’ll go stale.
The same is equally true about superhero films, and it’s a fate that Sony‘s Kraven the Hunter suffered this weekend, becoming the lowest opening in the studio’s Marvel canon with $11 million three-day total.
The bomb is the third strike for Sony/Marvel following 2022’s Morbius ($73.8M) and this year’s Madame Web ($43.8M). These are films made strictly by the Sony brass without the nuance of Lord & Miller, who steer their Spider-Verse animated movies, and Marvel Cinematic Universe boss Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal, who shepherd their Tom Holland-starring MCU movies. Combined, the Holland and Spider-Verse titles have grossed $6.85 billion worldwide.
Sony has owned the Spider-Man and friends portion of the Marvel library separate from Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe since 1999.
Recently, we heard about Madame Web‘s set of problems: Last-minute cuts of 20 to 30 pages before production started sending the filmmakers into a quandary, a first-time feature film director in S.J. Clarkson, and lackluster dailies that weren’t corrected down the road by the producers. Let’s also not forget how Sony didn’t double down in selling the movie on its newfound Anyone But You box office star Sydney Sweeney.
Any similar issues on the set of the movie directed by Oscar-nominated J.C. Chandor have not come to light with Kraven, which commenced production in 2022, with reshoots occurring after the actors strike wrapped in November 2023. Golden Globe winner Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars as the son of a ruthless gangster father (Russell Crowe) who starts him down a path of vengeance with brutal consequences, only to become the greatest hunter in the world. In the comic books, the bare-chested, leopard-pant- and leather-vest-wearing rifleman is known as one of the notable adversaries of Spider-Man.
Hence, we’re told that what hurt Kraven the Hunter was being a victim of circumstance in an oversaturated superhero marketplace and audiences’ changing attitudes toward the genre. Read, Sony Marvel’s problems aren’t any different from Disney’s Marvel Studios (Marvels, Eternals) or for that matter Warner Bros’ DC Studios (The Flash, Shazam 2, Aquaman 2, etc).
For Sony, that cultural shift with superhero movies was further compounded by the actors and writers strikes. Kraven the Hunter couldn’t be hurried along in reshoots and rewrites.
True, the re-starting of production drove up costs for any major tentpole caught in the strike vortex; Kraven the Hunter spiked from $90M to $110M. While the movie was being cut during the strikes, it was decided to go back for reshoots once the actors and writers standoffs ceased. Even at $90M, an $11M start is embarrassing (Sony will contend it makes its superhero movies cheaper than the competition’s $200M-$350M-plus average). By comparison, Disney/Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine also faced strike stop-and-start problems but remained the diamond in the rough in the storm of superheroitis, benefitting from being a long-awaited bawdy sequel, not to mention the dynamic-duo pairing of Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. At the end of the day, Deadpool & Wolverine is the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time at $1.33 billion.
Kraven the Hunter was developed in 2018 when half-assed superhero movies could do no wrong. Sony got away with making a fan-appreciated though critically disdained Venom franchise, which is netting the studio some $400M in profit off a combined $1.8 billion in global grosses.
Chandor, who previously directed the Mark Boal co-scripted Triple Frontier for Netflix, became attached during Covid in August 2020. He was attracted by the prospects of making a grounded gangster film. Nocturnal Animals Golden Globe winner Taylor-Johnson signed on to the title role in May 2021. The $1.95 billion grossing phenomenal success of Sony and Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man: No Way Home three years ago only cemented the Culver City lot’s belief that superhero movies were invincible — until myriad low points followed, indicating that fanboys would no longer accept cookie-cutter titles like Sony’s Morbius in the spring of 2022 ($73.8M domestic box office, $167.4M worldwide), MCU’s sequel The Marvels in November 2023 ($84.5M, $206.1M) and previous dud Madame Web ($43.8M, $100.4M).
Further complicating Sony’s expansion of the Spider-Man universe is that Sony can’t use Tom Holland’s live-action MCU character willy-nilly. It received a clearance to have the webslinger make a cameo at the end of 2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
Sony originally dated Kraven the Hunter for MLK weekend 2023 before moving it to October 6, 2023. The initial footage and announcement that the title would be the first R-rated Spidey universe movie was announced at CinemaCon that year. The first trailer dropped June 16. As the strike got underway in July, Sony pushed Kraven the Hunter more than a year to Labor Day weekend 2024. Scared by the heat around Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in the post-Labor Day corridor, Sony shifted Kraven the Hunter to the prized pre-holiday mid-December frame where it launched Jumanji: The Next Level ($59.2M) and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse ($35.3M) to great success.
Rival motion picture marketing execs believe that Kraven the Hunter would have fared better as a four-day launch in order to collect the most money possible. It’s all about the first weekend with superhero movies before they dropped like a rock in weekend 2. Despite the Christmas holiday’s history for a 5x-plus multiple on releases, Kraven the Hunter will have a hard time holding screens against Disney’s Mufasa, Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and still-powerful Thanksgiving tentpoles Wicked and Moana 2. It doesn’t matter that it’s the only R-rated fanboy movie on the marquee, the pic has limited word of mouth in its C CinemaScore.
Social Media analytics corp RelishMix noticed zero heat around the Sony/Marvel title before its opening with 278.9M followers across TikTok, Facebook, X, YouTube and Instagram combined. That paled in comparison to the social media universe of bombs like The Marvels (599M followers) and Madame Web (424M followers).
In regards to the poor word of mouth on Kraven the Hunter that RelishMix noticed: “Many viewers are unassuaged in their apprehension to taking a C-list comic book character and giving him his own movie. Comments include, ‘He’s a super-VILLAIN! Why does Sony want to make Spider-man’s rogues gallery good(ish)?!’ and, “Here comes Sony’s annual <expletive> of Spider-Man universe movie without Spider-Man.’ Others were turned off by the CGI: ‘Looked interesting until that tiger/whatever part, expectation changed from “cool” to “sill” pretty fast,’ and ‘Looks like the rhino didn’t finish rendering.'”
Sony tells Deadline that they didn’t cut back on their P&A spend for Kraven the Hunter heading into the weekend, however, we’ve heard from others close to the film that the studio opted not to air some pre-booked TV spots. When it comes to being financially responsible, Sony isn’t stupid, and it will not throw good money after bad. Seeing the storm, Sony scaled back its skin on Kraven the Hunter from 75% to 50% with TSG upping its share. (Sony has an option twice a year for TSG to bump up its stakes on movies.)
What happens now?
Sony isn’t turning its back on Chandor having had a great experience working with the filmmaker. As Deadline told you first, Sony is back in business with Chandor with the director helming an untitled contemporary drama thriller centering around the polemics of capitalism, with the story involving an investigation into a death in a moneyed dynastic family.
As far as more Sony/Marvel goes, we understand that there are a couple of projects in the works, but the studio’s development team is in full reset mode on Marvel fare, taking what one talent rep says is a “ruthless attitude” going forward on whether Spidey’s friends and foes have a future life on the big screen.
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