While Sony gave the film a promotional push in recent weeks, it seems the film’s dreadful reviews – including a one-star pan from The Independent, who called it “abysmal” – affected cinemagoers’ desire to watch it: Kraven the Hunter had the worst opening weekend of any Sony-produced Marvel film.
The film pulled in just $11m (£8.7m) in the US and $15m (£11.8m) globally, earning it overall takings of $26m (£20.5m) – an even more meagre amount when considering it cost between $110-$150m (£86.9m-£118.5m). As of 22 December, the film had made just $30.2m (£24m).
These global takings sit behind the equally-as-maligned Morbius, starring Jared Leto, which took $39m. Madame Web was another Spider-Man spin-off released by Sony and, while despised by the critics, it amassed half of its budget back in the opening weekend alone, with takings of $49.1m.
Sony did enjoy big success with the Venom franchise, which became a sleeper hit when it launched in 2018.
The first Venom made $856.1m (£676.2m) with 2021 sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage amassing $506.8m (£400.3m).
Meanwhile, the third and final entry in the series, Venom: The Last Dance, has made $475.5m (£375.6m) since being released earlier this year. At the time of writing, this makes it the ninth highest-grossing film of the year.
Like Morbius, Kraven was a B-tier villain that nobody really cared about or wanted to see a movie of. I’m convinced this is all just some kind of money laundering scheme because there’s no way Sony executives keep thinking this will work.
I think a lot of these movies entered production after the first 2 Venom movies. By the time Sony realized they weren’t going to see the same success, it was too late to pull the plug. I think Kraven is the last one in the pipe so I doubt we’ll see anymore. Even Venom 3 didn’t do that great.
It’s a good theory. But keep in mind: these are corporate executives. They can barely check their own email.
I think riding marvels coattails only goes so far