‘Interesting playing a villain’: Actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson out for blood in Kraven The Hunter

NEW YORK – Hot on the heels of the Venom film series (2018 to 2024) comes Kraven The Hunter, the live-action big-screen debut of another iconic antagonist from the Spider-Man comic books.

Sergei Kravinoff, also known as Kraven, is a big-game hunter who first appeared in a 1960s issue of Marvel’s The Amazing Spider-Man comic, becoming one of the web-slinger’s greatest adversaries because of his brutality and prowess.

The character gets a proper origin story with this new film, which stars British actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the title role and opens in Singapore cinemas on Dec 12.

Australian star Russell Crowe (Gladiator, 2000) plays Sergei’s father Nikolai Kravinoff, a ruthless gangster and crime lord whose tumultuous relationship with his son spurs the latter to become one of the world’s greatest hunters.

Speaking at a fan convention in New York earlier in 2024, Taylor-Johnson – who headlined the Kick-Ass superhero comedies (2010 and 2013) – says there is no comic-book antihero quite like Kraven.

“He’s got such an iconic image and he’s just a very unique comic-book character.

“He’s real. He’s not an alien, he’s not a visual effects monster. He’s a man who’s made a choice to be a hunter, a killer, and I think that comes with a lot of layers,” says the 34-year-old, who also played Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver in the superhero blockbuster Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015) and appeared in action films such as Bullet Train (2022) and The Fall Guy (2024).

“And it’s always interesting playing a villain. I think it comes with a lot more depth and complexity,” he adds.

But Taylor-Johnson also believes the character has a moral compass of sorts.

“Like all great hunters, Kraven respects his prey and the natural order. He’s an apex predator, the top of the food chain. And like every hunter knows, sometimes you have to cull the herd to preserve order.

“But of course, once he starts applying that to human beings, that’s when it becomes a pretty dark story.

“I’ve not seen that in a comic-book movie before,” says the star, who won acclaim for his performances in the psychological thriller Nocturnal Animals (2016) and the John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy (2009).

Director J.C. Chandor says Kraven The Hunter – which is rated M18 for violence in Singapore – will not shy from the brutality that Kraven is known for in the source material.

“When the studio gave us the opportunity to do this with an (adult) R (rating in the US), we were, like, ‘Yes!’”, says the 51-year-old American film-maker, who is known for directing character-driven dramas such as Margin Call (2011), All Is Lost (2013) and A Most Violent Year (2014).

“It opened up some really intense grindhouse stuff on one side, and also some really intense character stuff that’s in the core of the comic books.”

Chandor says his goal is to explore the “grey area of the human experience”.

“I don’t think anyone starts out wanting to be a villain, and a lot of people who are villains probably don’t realise it.

“So, we start the film with a young kid who wants nothing to do with his dad or that life, but fate draws him to it.”

The movie will also be an entertaining superhero flick with gritty, realistic action scenes.

“We walked a tonal balance,” Chandor says. “We’re not breaking the fourth wall – we believe in this story like it’s really happening.

“But when you step back, the movie still knows it’s a big fun Marvel film and it’s supposed to be a good Friday night out.”

Although Kraven briefly pops up as a non-speaking character in the animated hit Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (2023), this is the hunter’s first standalone live-action movie. And Chandor jumped at the chance to construct the screen version of Kraven from the ground up.

“The idea that this character had never been put on screen before, so you were going to be in charge of building an entire world and finding the right people to play these characters – that drew me to it,” he says.

The story is also the archetypal hero’s journey. “It’s like an old gangster film, basically – this classic kind of journey, but with a little bit of a Marvel spin.”