Put a Marvel character in a movie and you'd be nearly guaranteed to have a box-office success on your hands. Heck, five years ago you'd be almost guaranteed for a box office success. But over the past few years, there has been a noticeable shift in the industry as audiences don't just respond to movies based on their genre or franchise; they respond to them based on interest.
That much has always been true, specifically in the superhero genre, as a number of characters just haven't been able to carry their own superhero movies to success (Supergirl in the '80s, Steel in the '90s), but it's become that much more a problem in a day and age when every studio wants to franchise their own superheroes even if they aren't as well-known. And then some of those that are well-known just can't make good movies.
Even the almighty Marvel Studios has had a number of blows in recent years, with two films underperforming at the box office and one outright flopping. That is a sign of how imperative it is to get it right these days.
Unfortunately for this movie based on a Marvel character, the trend is working against it.
Kraven the Hunter now expected to flop at the box office
Sony's upcoming Marvel movie Kraven the Hunter is now projected to earn just $13 million to $15 million at the domestic box office over the course of its opening weekend. That's down significantly from last week's projections, which predicted the film would earn between $20 - $25 million. Now, those numbers were obviously much better and they might have seemed halfway decent for any typical movie, but when you factor in that Kraven has a budget north of $100 million ($110 million, to be exact) then it's not good news. Not good news at all.
In fact, the most notorious entry in Sony's Spider-Verse franchise, Morbius, had a much stronger opening weekend of $39 million back in 2022. And that film still went on to underperform, bringing in $167 million on a budget much smaller than Kraven's. Given that as Sony's film series doesn't have the best reputation critically, the response to Morbius likely worked against it. A more positive response to Kraven the Hunter might work for it, but it likely won't be enough to make up the ground that it needs to.
The real story here is that the Aaron Taylor-Johnson-led movie is now expected to perform similarly or worse than Madame Web, which had an unfortunate $15 million opener. Undoubtedly one of the most notorious movies of the year, the February release had a much smaller budget than Kraven and still flopped, so that's not much of a reassurance.
It's not surprising that this week also saw TheWrap reveal that the Sony Pictures Universe of Spider-Man Characters is reportedly done, with no more immediate plans for any sequels. None of the films have been successful outside of the Venom trilogy, and even those have been torn apart by critics for their incoherent scripts (and each one was considerably less successful than the previous one).
Early reactions for Kraven have been mixed, with plenty of praise for the action sequences and Aaron Taylor-Johnson's moody antihero, but the criticism is once again directed towards the script, the CGI, and the pacing. It will be interesting to see how wider audiences respond to it, but given the apparent lack of interest in a Kraven the Hunter movie (in Sony's Spider-Man Universe, at least), the film could be in for a very rough box office run.
It's a shame because a Kraven the Hunter movie led by Aaron Taylor-Johnson has all the makings if a masterpiece, but it just sounds like the reputation of the franchise and the lack of interest in multiple Spidey villain movies has ultimately worked against it. Maybe if Kraven came first, this would be a different story.
Kraven the Hunter is released in movie theaters on December 13, 2024.