Kraven the Hunter is Sony Pictures’ worst movie launch since current CEO Tony Vinciquerra took the job back in 2017, he has admitted.
The Sony Spider-Man Universe movie stars Kick Ass and Marvel Cinematic Universe actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the titular villain, a skilled hunter who sets his sights on Spider-Man after conquering all other prey in the animal kingdom.
Kraven bombed at the box office with a paltry $11 million domestic haul from 3,211 theatres during launch weekend. That figure was enough to set an unwanted record: the worst ever opening for a Sony Spider-Man Universe movie. The R-rated action flick came in under the similarly disastrous Madame Web, which brought in just $15.3 million during its launch weekend earlier this year, as well as all the Venom movies and 2022’s Morbius ($39 million). Kraven’s current $43,877,089 worldwide box office is especially awful given the movie cost an estimated $110 million to produce. When you add on marketing spend, Kraven is set for a big loss.
In an interview with the LA Times, outgoing Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra described Kraven the Hunter as “probably the worst launch we had in the seven-and-a-half years” since he took the job, before going on to express his surprise at the film’s disappointing box office haul: “so that didn’t work out very well, which I still don’t understand, because the film is not a bad film.”
In the same interview, Vinciquerra discussed Madame Web’s launch, blaming its box office on the press. Indeed, Vinciquerra suggested the press was to blame for all the Sony Spider-Man Universe failures, pointing to the Venom trilogy’s success as coming despite this apparent campaign from critics.
“Madame Web underperformed in the theaters because the press just crucified it,” Vinciquerra claimed. “It was not a bad film, and it did great on Netflix. For some reason, the press decided that they didn’t want us making these films out of Kraven and Madame Web, and the critics just destroyed them. They also did it with Venom, but the audience loved Venom and made Venom a massive hit. These are not terrible films. They were just destroyed by the critics in the press, for some reason.”
Sony's Spider-Man universe officially includes six films, listed here alongside their IGN review scores: Venom (4/10), Venom: Let There Be Carnage (7/10), Morbius (5/10), Madame Web (5/10), Venom: The Last Dance (4/10), and Kraven the Hunter (3/10).
The question now is, is Kraven the final nail in the coffin for Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, a universe that, remarkably, does not feature Spider-Man? Earlier this month a leading talent agent told The Wrap that Sony had "developed what they want to develop for now" and was instead focusing on the next actual Spider-Man film under Marvel Studios, which is confirmed by star Tom Holland to begin filming in 2025. As a point of comparison, Spider-Man: No Way Home pulled in $587.2 million in its weekend box office debut.
Vinciquerra admitted Sony needs to “rethink” its Spider-Man universe strategy, but blamed the need to do that on the press, rather than any deficiencies at Sony Pictures itself. “I do think we need to rethink it, just because it’s snake-bitten,” he said. “If we put another one out, it’s going to get destroyed, no matter how good or bad it is.”
Overall, Vinciquerra insisted, Sony Pictures’ film effort has been “very successful” during his tenure as CEO, beating the company’s budgets each year since 2017. “It was a good run, and the film studio was a big part of it,” he said.
Sony has the aforementioned Spider-Man 4 to look forward to, at least. It arrives on July 24, 2026 as a continuation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe trilogy again starring Holland. It may even introduce Miles Morales into the MCU, something Holland is personally invested in.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
