Kraven the Hunter is closing in on us, and if there’s any justice in the world, it will be the bookend of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. It’s true that both this and Venom: The Last Dance have some semblance of an opportunity to pleasantly surprise us, but the utter cynicism with which Sony has approached too many of these films in the past has resulted in a taste that probably won’t be washed out.
It’s fitting, then, that on the back of Kraven the Hunter‘s brand new trailer releasing earlier today, conversations around Morbius and Madame Web — the king and queen of cinematic superhero blasphemy —have begun popping up on X, and the lacerations haven’t lost even a bit of edge.
Now, is it hard to imagine Kraven the Hunter being worse than Morbius or Madame Web? Yes, immensely. Can we count on a trailer to communicate how good or bad the film will be? No, certainly not. Does it make sense to wait until Kraven the Hunter actually releases before passing any kind of verdict? Most certainly.
But it is beyond a shadow of a doubt that the continued shaming of Sony’s handling of these movies is absolutely, positively justified. The creative dissonance that was so clearly injected into the studio’s past flops by a committee of clueless executives (and that includes titles beyond superhero movies like Tarot and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire) is completely unacceptable, and the fact that they get away with it as often as they have is profoundly disturbing.
Here’s hoping Kraven the Hunter is a solid movie all the same, but the alarm bells are tired of ringing, and it’s high time that Sony got the keys to many of its castles taken away.
Kraven the Hunter hits theaters on Dec. 13.