Aaron Taylor-Johnson in "Kraven the Hunter."
Kraven the Hunter—the critically maligned Marvel box office bomb starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Russell Crowe—has dropped out of the box office top 10 in its third weekend in North American theaters.
Rated R, Kraven the Hunter is the latest Sony Pictures Entertainment release about an ancillary character in the studio’s Spider-Man movie universe. Previously, the studio released Morbius, Madame Web and three Venom movies.
According to The Numbers, Kraven the Hunter earned an estimated $1.7 million over the weekend for a No. 11 finish at the domestic box office.
With this weekend’s take, per The Numbers, Kraven the Hunter has earned $21.1 million domestically and $31.2 million internationally for a worldwide box office tally of $52.5 million against a $110 million production budget before prints and advertising.
Released in theaters on Dec. 13, Kraven the Hunter, according to The Numbers, earned $11 million in its first weekend at the domestic office for a No. 3 finish behind Moana 2 and Wicked, which earned $26.6 million and $22.5 million for the No. 1 and No. 2 spots, respectively.
Kraven the Hunter then slid to the No. 7 spot at the Dec. 20-22 weekend box office with a domestic take of $3 million, which boosted its 10-day total to $17.3 million.
Exiting Sony CEO Defends ‘Kraven The Hunter’
While Sony Pictures Entertainment’s three Venom films starring Tom Hardy have been hits at the box office—including Venom: The Last Dance in 2024—the studio was not nearly as fortunate at ticket counters with its other Spider-Man universe films released this year: Madame Web and now Kraven the Hunter.
In an interview with SPE’s outgoing CEO Tony Vinciquerra, the executive lamented the poor box office reception of Kraven the Hunter in a Dec. 26 interview with the Los Angeles Times.
“Unfortunately, [Kraven the Hunter] that we launched last weekend, and my last film launch, is probably the worst launch we had in the 7 1/2 years so that didn’t work out very well, which I still don’t understand, because the film is not a bad film,” Vinciquerra told the LA Times.
Rotten Tomatoes critics didn’t agree with Vinciquerra, however, and gave Kraven the Hunter a 16% “rotten” rating based on 140 reviews. Madame Web’s reception by reviewers was even worse, as it earned a dismal 11% “rotten” rating from Rotten Tomatoes critics based on 266 reviews.
Like Kraven the Hunter, Vinciquerra defended Madame Web and blamed critics for the film’s box office performance.
“Let’s just touch on Madame Web for a moment. Madame Web underperformed in the theaters because the press just crucified it. It was not a bad film, and it did great on Netflix,” Vinciquerra told the LA Times.
“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,” Vinciquerra added. “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.”
Kraven the Hunter is playing in theaters nationwide.
