Sony’s upcoming Kraven the Hunter film is tracking for an atrocious $20 million opening weekend.
Box office analyst Shawn Robbins revealed his predictions at Box Office Theory where he shared the film will only bring in between $16 million and $24 million in its opening weekend at the domestic box office. He specifically noted it will only bring in $20 million.
As for its entire run, Robbins predicted it will earn between $41.5 million and $72 million. He specifically predicted it will do $52.2 million.
Robbins explained his predictions, “Selective audience goodwill and the performance of films like Madame Web, Morbius, and many other comic book adaptations over the last two years give pause against what used to be minor breakout expectations for Kraven before several release delays.”
For comparison, Madame Web, which released in February of this year only had an opening weekend of $15.3 million. It went on to earn just $43.8 million domestically and just $100.2 million globally.
Morbius, which released in April 2022, only grossed $39 million in its opening weekend. It went on to earn $73.8 million domestically and had a global gross of $162.7 million.
Just recently, Sony released Venom: The Last Dance at the end of October and it only had an opening weekend of $51 million. So far, it has earned $134.7 million domestically and $457 million globally.
The first Venom film had an opening weekend of $80.2 million and grossed $213.5 million domestically. It brought in $856 million globally.
Venom: Let There be Carnage had an opening weekend of $90 million and a domestic gross of $213.5 million. Its global gross was $501.5 million.
It is highly likely that Kraven the Hunter will lose Sony a ton of money if it does not vastly outperform these early predictions.
Early estimates claim the film has a budget of $130 million. That means the film has to gross at least $325 million to break even. That means the film would need to gross around $300 million from the international audience alone.
Now, that’s not out of the question, given Venom: The Last Dance has grossed $322.2 million internationally so far, but it will be a very long row to hoe.
The film might actually be in more trouble than what Robbins’ dismal predictions indicate. J.C. Chandor, the film’s director was begging moviegoers to give the film a chance.
He told ComicBook.com, “I don’t want to get too into the nitty gritty of it, but here’s what I would say: for me as a filmmaker, my number one goal, especially, quite frankly, over the last couple of years where you guys are deep in this world … some of the fans out there, a lot of the fans, were upset with certain decisions and certain outcomes [of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe]. Then with other films, they’ve gone on to be tremendous successes. So there’s been there’s been a mixed success rate.”
“People have got to give us a chance and come out and support this film, and literally try to wash away some of the other stuff that’s happened. Give our film a chance,” he pleaded.
Chandor concluded, “And I think they’ll realize that we’ve done everything we can to give them a pretty fun story. You’ll see when the movie’s over, there’s potential for a lot of things to happen. But my goal was to isolate our movie, protect it, and just tell a good damn story. And then we’ll have opportunities to do a lot of fun things.”
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The film has turned off comic book fans given it’s playing fast and loose with the character of Kraven. An early trailer seemingly revealed that Kraven is some kind of mutant with his blood being mixed with that of a lion. It grants him superhuman abilities including the ability to communicate with various animals.
Furthermore, it claims that his motivation for doing what he does is to remove the evil that his father puts into the world.
In the original comics, Kraven the Hunter’s motivation is to hunt and “hunt the most dangerous game of all.” And the most dangerous game of all is man. And the most dangerous man of all is Spider-Man.
As for how he obtained his abilities in the comics, Kraven informs Chameleon, “I possess undreamed-of strength and speed, which I obtained by drinking a potion, stolen from the witch-doctor of a hidden African tribe! With but one punch, I can stop the charge of a bull elephant!”
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