Russell Crowe joins Sony’s Kraven the Hunter movie

Russell Crowe, known for his work on movies like Gladiator, Robin Hood and much more, has joined the cast of Sony’s Kraven the Hunter movie, per The Hollywood Reporter. Nothing is known yet about Crowe’s role, but he’ll be acting alongside Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Avengers: Age of Ultron, Godzilla), who plays the title role.

Kraven is the next movie in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, aka the villain-centric cinematic universe that the studio is building in response to the MCU. Currently the SMU stands at two films: Venom and its sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage, with Jared Leto’s vampire flick Morbius set to bring that number up to three when it releases in April. Kraven is the only other movie we know for sure is coming as of this writing.

All things considered, giving Kraven his own film makes a lot of sense. Outside of mainstays like Doc Ock or the Green Goblin, Kraven is one of the most well-known characters from Spider-Man’s rogues gallery. He’s a Russian big game hunter who makes it a point to challenge himself by hunting the ultimate prey: Spider-Man. He’s always been a bit less of an evil villain and more of a gray character who sticks to his own code.

Russell Crowe joins the cast of Kraven the Hunter

Of course, since this is the Sony universe and none of these villains have yet interacted with the webslinger, we’re not counting on that being the plot of Kraven. It’s more likely that this will be an origin story for the character, in the vein of Venom or Morbius.

J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year) is set to direct the Kraven film, working off a screenplay written by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, the duo who penned the original Iron Man movie, as well as Richard Wenk (The Equalizer). Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach will serve as producers.

Interestingly, this means that both of the leads we know about for Kraven the Hunter are also in the MCU; Crowe in the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder and Taylor-Johnson as Quicksilver in Avengers: Age of Ultron. It’s not clear whether this will be referenced in the movie — with the multiverse now open in the MCU and Sony and Marvel coordinating on crossovers like Spider-Man: No Way Home, it wouldn’t be a big stretch.

For now, we’ll be keeping our eye out for any more news on this one as it develops.

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