Sony’s last stab at their ill-fated Spider-Man universe has released to a whimper, with J.C. Chandor‘s Kraven the Hunter failing to make a major impact at the box office on its opening weekend. Sergei Kravinoff’s origin story opened on December 13 to a poor $4.8 million domestically, finishing third all weekend behind Moana 2 and Wicked. Clearly, the initial desire to witness Aaron Taylor-Johnson‘s Kravinoff and his issues with his father is lacking from audiences, something unlikely to change when considering the movie’s terrible critical reception.
Currently, Kraven the Hunter holds a dismal 15% critical score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with its CinemaScore even worse than fellow franchise flops Madame Web and Morbius. However, the film does have a much more encouraging audience score of 73% from over 1,000 verified ratings, with audiences and critics seemingly failing to see eye-to-eye. Because of this, the movie is now officially the second worst-rated in Taylor-Johnson’s career to date, saved only by the low 9% score of 2010’s cyber thriller, Chatroom. Interestingly, 2024 didn’t just bring about Taylor-Johnson’s worst-reviewed movie in over a decade, but also the best of his career, with the upcoming Nosferatu already earning rave reviews and a mighty 94% certified fresh score on the review aggregator.
‘Kraven the Hunter’ is a Perfect Example of Why Sony Has to Change
Sadly, Kraven the Hunter is now the fifth movie in a row from Sony’s Spider-Man Universe to receive terrible reviews, something the company simply cannot ignore. Granted, there have been plenty of highs throughout this run, but the current trend of indefensible mistakes will perhaps prove so glaring that a great change is on its way. There is certainly a chance that, in several years’ time, fans of the franchise will be looking back on Kraven the Hunter‘s poor performance and thanking it for providing Sony with the final proof that a shift must come. This is something mentioned in more detail in Aidan Kelley’s review of the film for Collider, saying:
With a whopping five poorly critically received movies in a row,
Kraven the Hunter
really should have been the last attempt to right the ship. Instead, the film repeats the exact same mistakes that have been pointed out over and over again since the first
Venom
film. It’s almost like a worst-hits compilation of all those movies’ mistakes, with the poorly conceived idea of
Venom
, the barely coherent story of
Morbius
, and the baffling technical problems of
Madame Web
.
Only time will tell, but Sony and the creative team behind these films seem to be taking the feedback in stride to make something constructive, and that’s what the primary goal of criticism should be — constructive change.
Do I wish
Kraven the Hunter
was a much better superhero movie?
Of course, but the seeming evidence that the film’s flaws are so apparent that it will lead to better films in the future is worth noting.
Kraven the Hunter is officially the second worst-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes in Aaron Taylor Jonhson’s career. You can catch the film in theaters now.
Kraven the Hunter
- Release Date
- December 13, 2024
- Director
- J.C. Chandor
- Cast
- Aaron Taylor-Johnson , Russell Crowe , Fred Hechinger , Ariana DeBose , Christopher Abbott , Alessandro Nivola , Levi Miller , Chi Lewis-Parry , Billy Barratt , Jessica Zhou , Michael Shaeffer , Dritan Kastrati , Greg Kolpakchi , Elander Moore , Filiz Fairweather , Duran Fulton Brown , Alex Skarbek , Rachel Handshaw , Preslav Shipkaliev , Murat Seven , Robert Ryan
- Runtime
- 127 Minutes
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