Sony Found Their Kraven the Hunter in Aaron Taylor-Johnson

My dreams of Pedro Pascal playing Kraven the Hunter have come to an end, and while I am sad that I’ll never get that, I am relatively happy to note that Aaron Taylor-Johnson has been cast to take on the role. The game hunter who makes a sport out of searching far and wide for Peter Parker, Kraven is a villain in the Spider-Man world who fans love to explore. (It’s me. I’m fans.)

And now, Sony has found their Kraven the Hunter for the J.C. Chandor (Triple Frontier‘s director and co-writer) movie focused on the character, and I’m extremely excited about the energy that this movie is going to have as Sony continues to build properties around the Spider-Man characters they have access to. (I loved whatever Triple Frontier was selling me and have watched the 2019 movie at least 5 times. I have no complaints.) Taylor-Johnson wasn’t the first pick for the role, but after his work in Bullet Train, Sony knew who they wanted.

The shortlist for the game hunter included stars like John David Washington, Keanu Reeves, and Brad Pitt. I’m going to have to come around to the choice they ultimately made, since I did have my heart set on Pascal, but alas, I did love Taylor-Johnson in Tenet, and I think he’ll have fun in the role—especially with the energy he brought to roles like Pietro in the MCU and how fun he was in Kick-Ass.

What this does do is make it seem as though Sony’s Spidey villain movies and the Marvel Cinematic Universe are pretty separate, since Taylor-Johnson already had a MCU role, playing Quicksilver in Avengers: Age of Ultron. With the introduction of Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes in the trailer for Morbius, fans were suddenly questioning how much movies like Venom were connected to Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies and, thus, the MCU.

Simply reusing an actor in the role—especially one whose MCU character died shortly after his introduction—doesn’t mean that Kraven will never interact with Peter Parker, though. Marvel has used double-casting before, recently with Gemma Chan, who was in Captain Marvel before going on to star in Eternals as Sersi. (And there is plenty more doubling up in Marvel-adjacent properties with Oscar Isaac, Chris Evans, and Michael B. Jordan.) So having Taylor-Johnson as Kraven doesn’t mean he won’t ever be back as Pietro in the future, or that Kraven won’t crossover into the Tom Holland movies.

This casting, for me, is very interesting. I see where they were going, and I understand why Taylor-Johnson was chosen. I think that John David Washington would have been a FUN Kraven, but that’s also because I want him to be our next great action star, but having Taylor-Johnson take on Sergei Kravinoff will be an interesting time. And if Chandor’s Kraven movie is anything like Triple Frontier, there is going to be plenty of amazing banter and action to keep us all entertained. Now, I just need it to hurry up, since we have to wait until January of 2023 to see Taylor-Johnson in the animal fur.

(image: Marvel Entertainment)

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