At this point, we don’t know all the secretsSpider-Man: No Way Homehas in store, but we know a good amount of them, which includes a mashing together of multiverses to bring back characters from bothSam Raimi’s Spidey series (Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin,Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus,Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman) and theAmazing Spider-Mantwo-piece (Jamie Foxx’s Electro,Rhys Ifan’s Lizard). And while there’s no official word on whether former Peters ParkerTobey MaguireandAndrew Garfieldwill appear, the unofficial consensus is, basically,come onnnnnn. The point being, that’s a whole lot of logistical deal-making for Marvel and Sony, and a ton of secret-keeping forNo Way HomestarsTom Holland,Zendaya, andJacob Batalon. When Collider’s Steve Weintraub sat down with the trio to discuss the new MCU film, we learned that not only did they know about Marvel’s multiverse plans for “at least a couple years,” but it often looked like those massive plans wouldn’t pan out. During those shaky times, directorJon Wattshad a pretty good backup plan for his thirdSpider-Manmovie:Kraven the Hunter.
“When I first heard about [the multiverse], I was like, ‘okay cool, but that’s definitely not going to happen,'” Zendaya told Collider. Holland followed that up by noting Watts had a fully fleshed-out idea for a Kraven the Hunter story, should the sequel toSpider-Man: Far From Homeneed it. Here’s what he said:
“For a long time, there was going to be a Kraven movie that was going to be the third movie because things weren’t working out and all sorts of different stuff. Jon pitched me this Kraven movie, which actually was really cool. I don’t want to talk about it in case that movie ends up happening down the line, but it was fun.”
RELATED:Kevin Feige on ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ and Bringing Venom and the Multiverse to the MCU
First appearing inAmazing Spider-Man #15from writerStan Leeand artistSteve Ditko, the classic Spidey villain Kraven—real name Sergei Kravinoff—is a master tracker and big game huntsman who becomes singularly obsessed with catching his prey. The good news: The character is set to make his live-action appearance, just not (for now!) in the MCU proper. Sonyannounced back in MaythatAaron Taylor-Johnsonwould step into the leopard-print furs of Kraven the Hunter in a standalone film directed byTriple FrontierhelmerJ.C. Chandor. That film, written byArt Marcum,Matt Holloway, andRichard Wenk,has a release date of July 12, 2025, and will join the studio’s MCU-adjacent slate of Marvel movies that also includeVenomandMorbius.
But Watts, it should be noted, has been champing at the bit to get Kraven into one of his movies for a while now. All the way back in 2019, way before we knew any details aboutNo Way Home, the filmmaker had this to say toUproxx: “I would love Kraven. It’s just the trick of how do you do Kraven in a movie?”
Spider-Man: No Way Homehits theaters on December 17th. Check out exactly what Holland, Zendaya, and Batalon had to say in the player above and look for our full interview with the cast soon.
