With ‘Kraven the Hunter’, Sony May Break The Record of 2024’s Most Hated Release
- Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Kraven the Hunter bombs at the box office.
- The movie has the lowest opening weekend for a Marvel movie.
- Kraven the Hunter is playing in cinemas.
Sony Pictures’ highly awaited superhero movie Kraven the Hunter, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Russell Crowe, and more, was released on December 13, 2024. Directed by J.C. Chandor, the movie explores Kraven’s relationship with his father and his journey to becoming the greatest hunter.
Upon release, unfortunately, the movie did not perform at the box office the way studios expected. It’s the final movie in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, and it’s not wrong to say that it has ended pretty badly for SSU. Despite the audience praising Aaron Taylor-Johnson for his performance, he couldn’t save the movie, and thus, it has to set a new record, and it’s not a very celebratory one.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson starrer Kraven the Hunter bombs at the box office
According to reports by The Hollywood Reporter, Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s highly anticipated movie Karven the Hunter, which premiered on December 13, 2024, has failed to perform at the box office. Sony Pictures’ first R-rated comic book movie has reportedly bombed on its debut weekend grossing just about $11 million.
This record puts Kraven the Hunter at the top of the most hated releases of 2024, followed by Madame Web and Joker: Folie à Deux. The latter movies were also expected to perform well at the box office but couldn’t. Kraven the Hunter was given a C CinemaScore, and it has only managed to gross $26 million worldwide.
Kraven the Hunter’s failure has now marked Sony Pictures’ third unsuccessful attempt to spin off a secondary Spider-Man character into its movie franchise. Jared Leto starrer Morbius ($73.8M) and Dakota Johnson starrer Madame Web ($43.8M) and Variety noted that the back-to-back failures of the spin-off movies signify that maybe it’s the end of this endeavor at the studio.
Talking about the most hated releases of 2024, Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix’s starrer Joker: Folie à Deux was marketed well and kept the audience at their edge until the time of release. However, upon release, it went on to receive negative comments. It managed to gross over $206 million at the box office, but its decent performance rate can be credited to the success of 2019’s Joker which drove fans into the theater to watch the sequel.
Exhibitor Relations analyst Jeff Block shared his view with Variety and said that all of these characters are famous because they all went up against Spider-Man. He added that not having Spider-Man in any of the spin-off movies was the fatal flaw that studios did not realize.
He also acknowledged that Sony Pictures didn’t realize that Venom could carry a franchise, as they have tasted success with all three Venom movies while these other characters cannot do the same.
Kraven the Hunter director reacts to online criticism
J.C. Chandor recently spoke to CBR and mentioned that he pays attention to what audiences are saying in the comment section about his projects. He added that despite the comment section being overwhelming, he has learned a lot from reading the comments and opinions of the audience who are watching the movies.
The filmmaker J.C. Chandor also noted that Kraven the Hunter being Sony Pictures’ first R-rated movie helped them to have freedom. He explained,
When the studio presented the opportunity to us, they were contemplating wanting to market and make the film R-rated. It wasn’t something, as I said, that we took on super lightly. We really did think about it.
The director continued that looking into the Kraven’s storyline, gave them a lot of opportunities to be more realistic, stylistic, and more honest about the violence in the movie. He urged the fans to go watch the movie before judging whether they have been able to pull it off or not.
The filmmaker also noted that he and Aaron Taylor-Johnson were greatly inspired by Kraven’s Last Hunt, and if they get a chance to keep telling these stories, that is where they’d like to end. However, the chances of Kraven the Hunter getting a sequel is very slim especially with its performance.
Kraven the Hunter is now playing in cinemas.
