The year is almost over, but there’s still room for one more superhero movie. Kraven the Hunter, which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the predatory Spider-Man villain, is the last superhero movie of 2024, but it might also be the last entry in its franchise, too. Here’s everything you need to know about how Kraven the Hunter ends, including whether or not it has post-credit scenes, how it tees up a sequel, and the likelihood of that sequel ever getting made, because it sure seems like Sony’s thinking about bailing on this misbegotten Spider-Man cinematic universe that doesn’t feature Spidey himself.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]Kraven the Hunter, which hit theaters today (Dec. 13), is a feature-length origin story for the villain of the same name, who first appeared in comic books in 1964’s The Amazing Spider-Man 15. A supremely skilled big-time hunter who wants to hunt only the most dangerous game (like, for instance, Spider-Man), Kraven is one of the more memorable members of Spidey’s rogues gallery. However, Peter Parker is nowhere to be found and instead the film, from director J.C. Chandor, casts Kraven as its anti-hero protagonist. Kraven, whose real name is Sergei Kravinoff, is the estranged son of the crime lord Nikolai Kravinoff (played by Russell Crowe, who delivers every Russian-accented line of dialogue from some previously unknown depths of his throat). After leaving home following a lion attack and a chance encounter with another tourist that gave him animal superpowers (long story; it’s not important), Sergei flees to the wilderness of Russia and sets about hunting down bad criminals like his father. Though, notably, he does not hunt down his dad, and he maintains a relationship with his younger half-brother, Dmitri (Fred Hechinger).
It’s only when a rival crime boss, Aleksei Sytsevich a.k.a Rhino (Alessandro Nivola, giving by far the most entertaining performance in the film) kidnaps Dmitri in an attempt to get to Nikolai, that Sergei must fight on his family’s behalf. He ultimately defeats Rhino, saves Dmitri, and finally decides it’s time to dispose of his hated father, too. He does this by siccing a gigantic bear on him.
However, Kraven’s hunt has had some unexpected side effects. Dmitri, whom he had previously been very close with, is mad that Sergei hid what he was really doing from him. He decides to take up their late father’s mantle and, what’s more, undergoes a similar experimental procedure as the one that lets Aleksei transform into a humanoid rhinoceros. As a result, Dmitri has shapeshifting abilities, and becomes another Spider-Man villain, the Chameleon. The two are at odds, and Sergei is confronted with accusations that he’s actually not so different from his power-hungry father, even if he claims to be only hunting (read: extrajudicially killing) criminals. He ends the movie by returning to his childhood home, where he discovers that his father refashioned the taxidermied head of the lion that mauled Sergei into a vest, a more or less accurate version of Kraven’s costume in the comics. He ends the film slumped in a chair—the implication, perhaps, is that he’s now ready to embrace destiny and become a hunter of dangerous game.
Surely a post-credits scene—which almost every single comic book movie ends with—will tee up exactly what’s next for Kraven, right?
No. There is no mid-credits scene nor is there a post-credits scene. All of the Kraven action you were cravin’ is contained to the proper film itself. Feel free to exit the theater at your convenience rather than wait until the very end of a tease that won’t come.
There are several Easter eggs in Kraven the Hunter that suggest this version of the character could go on to become the Spider-Man villain comic book fans have known for decades. “By the final frame of our movie, you had to believe that character could live in a world where Kraven’s Last Hunt is a real thing,” Chandor told Collider, referencing the iconic 1987 comic storyline where Kraven finally succeeds in his quest to hunt Spider-Man. The film ends with Sergei contemplating his place in the world. Sure he’s been an ostensible hero for the two hours of movie preceding this frame, but you can imagine a world where he turns to hunting to fill a void left behind by his falling out with Dmitri.
There’s another part of the movie that could foreshadow a Kraven-Spidey showdown. Spider-Man isn’t in Kraven the Hunter, but spiders are. When Foreigner, a mercenary assassin played by Christopher Abbott, injects Sergei with some hallucinogenic poison, he starts seeing spiders everywhere—and many of these spiders overtly resemble Spider-Man’s familar logo. This bad trip, which is somewhat confusingly suggested to have a connection with his mother’s own arachnophobic mental illness, could easily set the stage for a future where Kraven decides to hunt Spider-Man in an attempt to quell his own demons.
There’s another big Spider-Man connection in Kraven the Hunter, too. Aleksei alludes to a doctor in New York City who performed the procedure that turned him into Rhino. Dmitri reveals he saw this same man to become Chameleon. It seems highly likely that this man is Norman Osborn. Also known as the Green Goblin, Norman is Spider-Man’s archnemesis, and alluding to him in Kraven the Hunter implies that there’s plenty of classic Spider-Man supervillainy happening in New York City.
Now, will any of these setups for future Kraven adventures, possibly featuring Spider-Man actually happen? Well…
There have been six movies in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, the loosely (if at all) connected franchise featuring secondary Spider-Man characters. Sony famously has the film rights to Spider-Man, but thanks to a mutually beneficial deal between Sony and Disney, there’s a joint custody agreement over Tom Holland’s wall-crawler with the MCU. As a result, Sony has tried to make standalone movies that make use of the intellectual property without having two live-action Spider-Men swinging around. The three Tom Hardy-led Venom movies have been commercial successes, largely because of the manic energy Hardy brings, but the recently released third installment’s box office suggests dwindling interest.
The other three films, Morbius, Madame Web, and now Kraven the Hunter, are almost unanimously agreed to be awful, bombing with critics, audiences, and at the box office. Those movies ended with sequel teases. Morbius brought Michael Keaton’s Vulture over from the MCU cannon and had him offer a team-up with Jared Leto’s living vampire to get Spider-Man, (nevermind that Spider-Man seemingly didn’t exist in Morbius’ universe?) There was no Morbius 2. Madame Web ends with the birth of Peter Parker and Dakota Johnson fulfilling her role as mentor to three Spider-Women who end the movie without getting superpowers. They still haven’t gotten them, as there’s no Madame Web 2. And, likewise, it seems doubtful that audiences will get to watch Kraven Hunts Again.
All of these movies have done an awkward dance around the fact that the part of the Spider-Man IP that people care about is, you know, Spider-Man! Not Morbius or Kraven, and certainly not when those B- or C-list characters aren’t interacting with Spider-Man. They’ve done all the requisite worldbuilding that comic fans expect from a superhero movie, but what sort of world that’s being built has never been clear. Aside from Venom’s surprising commercial success and some “so bad it’s good” highlights in the other movies, it’s fairly safe to say Sony’s Spider-Man Universe has been a colossal failure. A story in The Wrap reported that Sony has spent $465 million in production costs for the franchise only to have audience interest steadily plummet. The Wrap’s reporting suggests that Sony might be pivoting away from this strategy and instead trying to make more Spider-Man movies with Spider-Man in them. Whether these films would feature Tom Holland’s Spidey having non-MCU adventures or whether they would be something new is unknown at this point. Whatever the future holds, there certainly aren’t any more Sony Spider-Man Universe films officially announced on the studio’s calendar.
So, it’s probably safe to assume that this franchise is over until further notice. Is it outside the realm of possibility that Aaron Taylor-Johnson might show up to reprise his role as Kraven in a future Spider-Man movie, one that doesn’t inherently negate the canonicity of the 2024 film? Sure, but Spider-Man villains or supporting characters carrying their own film with no web-slinger in sight seems like a trend that’s reached its natural conclusion.
