Things Are Looking Really, REALLY Bad For Kraven The Hunter

Is Sony's first R-rated superhero flick on track to break records? Yes ... but not in a good way. As the release date of "Kraven the Hunter" draws near, box office projections are spelling disaster for its opening weekend — and we're not exaggerating. It's predicted that the film will only make somewhere between $20-25 million throughout its first three days on the big screen. 

Keep in mind that this would be significantly less than "Morbius," which peaked at $39 million during its opening weekend in the U.S. It would even be lower than "Madame Web," which earned just a little less than $26 million. This means that "Kraven" could be on track to end up as one of the lowest-earning Marvel or Marvel-adjacent movies in history.

At this point, Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU) hasn't proven to be a worthy challenger to the official MCU. The first three "Venom" films were okay (at best), but only generated moderate profits and so-so reviews. "Morbius" didn't totally bomb in theaters, but essentially became the easiest way to make fun of Jared Leto — even after his disastrous portrayal of the Joker. And "Madame Web" was so baffling that you really just had to see it to believe it.

Why is the forecast for "Kraven," which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the title role, so abysmal? Well, as we just mentioned, there's the precedent that's already been set by the previous films in Sony's Spider-Man Universe. Audiences have yet to be truly wowed by anything that Sony has put forth so far, so why should they expect a sudden change now? 

It certainly looks like "Kraven" is following the same template used in previous Sony installments — the villain is more or less the hero of the story, certain aspects of Kraven's backstory and overall character have been altered, and Spidey himself isn't set to make an appearance (even if Sony has teased Kraven fighting some version of Spider-Man).

None of this worked particularly well in the previous films, and yet, it's what we're going to get anyway. Not only are people over this sort of letdown, but they're over how easy it is to tell that something is going to be a letdown before they even see it.

Is it possible that "Kraven the Hunter" subverts our expectations and starts to steer Sony in the right direction? Sure. It does have a few things going for it, after all. For one, Aaron Taylor-Johnson looks to be a solid choice for the titular role. Just like Tom Hardy was the saving grace of the "Venom" movies, Johnson could be the glue that holds everything together this time around. There's also the fact that it's R-rated. As we all know, R-rated superhero movies have a pretty good track record when it comes to both box office numbers and critical reviews, with "Deadpool and Wolverine" being the most recent example. Yes, "Joker: Folie a Déux" was an abomination, but it was essentially designed to fail.

Another saving grace for "Kraven" — at least for its performance at the box office — is the competition it will have in theaters, which isn't much. The only other major movie that drops at the same time is "The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim" — an animated feature that hasn't been hyped much whatsoever. With no other more appealing live-action juggernaut to challenge its supremacy, it's very possible that "Kraven" will perform better than expected — even if for no other reason than audiences have nothing better to do at the time.

In the end, though, these are just predictions. We'll just have to wait for its December 13th release date to see how "Kraven" stacks up in comparison to its less-than-marvelous predecessors.