Venom

Sony: But our cinematic universe! We have to build up the sequel to movies before we even finish one!

Replace "Sony" with "Literally every studio other than Marvel" and you've got something there.

...

Hey, is it still too early to think this will be the next case of "big name studio tries to ape the MCU, but ends up paying dearly for it because they crammed too much at once"? Because I'm getting flashbacks of that Dark Universe incident all over again...

Ooh, that sounds particularly sneaky. I can already imagine some spiteful people gleefully thinking "Ha, wait until that Venom movie bombs! Sony will slam into panic mode as their plans to give Marvel Studios a stealthy middle finger by giving Spider-Man's enemies their own Spidey-less movies comes to a screeching painful halt! MWA HA HA HA!"

EDIT: Before anyone says anything, let's take a moment to acknowledge that as tempting as it sounds to think of that hypothetical scenario I just described, schadenfreude is not cool no matter what.

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Aug 2nd 2018 at 1:51:12 PM

“so they can't be used in the MCU-connected movies“

I like that idea.

It’s needlessly petty.

Kraven's done just fine without Spider-Man. There is literally nothing about his concept that requires Spider-Man, which is why writers of other heroes have often used the character with no problem.

Kraven is a man who wants to hunt the most dangerous game. He's a Spider-Man rogue only because it was for a Spider-Man comic that Stan Lee came up with the character. That's it. He has, in the past, also hunted the likes of DareDevil, the Punisher, Black Panther, Venom, the Hulk, the X-Men, etc. etc.

There is nothing about his character that requires that he MUST FIGHT SPIDER-MAN and CAN ONLY FIGHT SPIDER-MAN. Kraven has a life outside of Spider-Man.

This, incidentally, is actually what's great about Marvel as a whole. Villains exist outside of the static designations of "Poison Ivy is BATMAN'S VILLAIN. She doesn't fight anyone but BATMAN." They fight other heroes all the time. Spider-Man doesn't own his rogues gallery.

Some even take on lives of their own. Like. If you only know Dr. Doom as that Fantastic Four villain who's mad at Reed Richards because his face blew up, then you've missed out on all of the best parts of Doom.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 2nd 2018 at 1:18:46 PM

But how is Kraven unique enough to warrant a movie? Part of his appeal is hunting supers. I don't really see how he works as a protagonist. His concept isn't even that interesting unless his prey is given an equal amount of development.

Right. I mean, what (or who) could Kraven hunt that A) is significant to the comic fans, B) ISN'T Spider-Man and C) is still owned by Sony? (I added C because Kraven was originally planned to appear in Black Panther to homage an iconic fight the two guys had, but Sony was like "hell no" on that.)

Yeah, I like to think "there are no bad ideas, only disinterested minds," and yeah, that shot the new Venom trailer had with Venom's face getting torn off made me go "holy crap", but I'm not sure if I can say with a straight face that a Kraven movie that doesn't have Spider-Man or anyone noteworthy is going to go well.

And of course, ALL OF THIS is assuming Venom will sell gangbusters, because if it doesn't, then this planning for a Kraven movie (and a Silver Sable and Black Cat team-up movie and a Morbius movie) will have been for nothing and Sony will end up becoming a laughingstock yet again. (Plus, that comment about how Venom will be "grounded" has me shaking my head in an act of losing faith...not that I had much to start with.)

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Aug 2nd 2018 at 4:51:32 AM

I mean that at least Venom has a stint as an Anti-Hero to draw from. Kraven is just a borderline Ax-Crazy villain the majority of the time.

Edited by LordVatek on Aug 2nd 2018 at 4:55:41 AM

I reiterate they should do a Kraven movie like a Mockumentary of Kraven kidnapping/recruiting a camera crew and taking them around New York as he hunts superhuman beings in a supervillain variation of Crocodile Hunter.

(Kraven spots Rhino roaming around Queens knocking around police cars ) "Now there's a big fella. See that horn? That is used to defend his territory against other, aggressive males, you see. The key to beating him— ah he's spotted us." (Kraven dodges out of the way as Rhino destroys the place they're in) "KEEP THE CAMERA ON ME!" (goes to wrestle Rhino).

That is literally how Ultimate Kraven was introduced, albeit Spider-Man was his target not Rhino. Then Peter knocked him out almost by accident. And then he was a weird werelion mutant who got into the Sinister Six pretty much entirely because "Sinister Five" sounds dumb.

Edited by jakobitis on Aug 2nd 2018 at 2:17:46 AM

Simple: have him hunt another villain. Since he's meant to be the protagonist, one could even get around the whole Most Dangerous Game problem by using one of Spidey's more literally animalistic rogues.

Maybe he's hunting Vermin. "Kraven's Last Hunt", the character's most famous story, featured him trying to prove himself superior to Spider-Man by defeating Vermin alone where Spider-Man needed help to accomplish the same feat, so there is an established animosity in the source material to draw on.

You could have this Ishmael and Ahab dynamic with a Viewpoint Protagonist where, like, we follow some guy who's studying Vermin's mysterious murders. Maybe he's a cop or a reporter or something, trying to figure out what's behind these strange serial killings. And then in comes the morally ambiguous Kraven, here to hunt it down and root it out.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 2nd 2018 at 3:33:20 AM

How much Sony expects from Venom will determine if it is a flop for them or not. Feigbusters didn't do that terrible, but the "cinematic universe" for that film has yet to resurface.

Please no.

Also the idea of a Kraven Mockumentary reminds me of this old fan film called Truth in Journalism but I doubt it will be a homage to Man Bites Dog.

Edited by Beatman1 on Aug 2nd 2018 at 10:04:23 AM

I mean, Venom, Silk, Black Cat, Morbius and Kraven are all great characters who have held their own stories and lend themselves to genre well.

If Sony is prepared to do these films well, and get the characters established in their own narrative bubbles before committing to a lynch pin film like Avengers Assemble or Justice League, there's nothing inherent in the properties to stop them.

Well, the issue lies in their planning with these announcements. Did Marvel announce Thor, Cap 1, and Hulk before Iron Man first came out? No, they waited and tested audience reactions along with the overall profit of the first movie.

I distinctly remember Thor Hulk and Ant Man all being announced before Iron Man was released. I remember a Cracked article complaining about all the marvel movies in pre production.

Edit: according to this new York Times ARTICLE , Marvel studios had TEN FILMS In its slate as of 2007.

Edit 2: At 2006 comic con marvel announced Captain America, Nick Fury and Thor films in addition to it's already announced Iron Man, Ant Man and Hulk films in 2006!

Like, we critize other studios for committing to too much too early, before they even have films out, but in their defence, Marvel did the exact same thing.

Edited by Whowho on Aug 3rd 2018 at 9:48:19 AM

Well, in Marvel's case, they planned exactly based on how the storyline may progress naturally.

How do you mean?

Did we know they were trying to build a shared universe at the time? If their movies had lackluster reception they probably would have just shifted gears a bit.

Well, in development and on the slate isn't the same as in production, as Ant-Man's late arrival and that nonexistent Nick Fury movie show. They were at least somewhat gung-ho about wanting to build up to the Ultimates/Avengers, IIRC.

Edited by Unsung on Aug 3rd 2018 at 8:20:15 AM

They didn't announce that they were building a shared universe, IIRC, but the intent was visibly there from the beginning. You know. Because they announce it in the stinger to the very first movie of their shared universe.

Iron Man blew audiences' minds in a lot of ways, not least of which was Nick Fury basically coming out, looking the audience in the eye, and going, "Cinematic Universe, yo."

Everyone else is just trying to copy Marvel's formula, which rarely ever works because that's the thing: copying a working formula means trying to give people something they already have and enjoy. People aren't really looking for another cinematic universe when they're already satisfied with Marvel's.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 3rd 2018 at 7:20:09 AM

Well Kevin says in those interviews that they'd committed to scripts and that they were hoping to do an Avengers film.

I don't see how that's any different from what Sony and WB are trying, or even what Universal tried to do.

Simple.

• Sony and WB fell into the trap of squeezing too much in the one movie as seen in The Amazing Spider-Man 2's attempt at establishing the Sinister Six and Peter's dad while Batman v Superman had to establish Batman, Lex Luthor, Wonder Woman, the other members of the Justice League, Doomsday, and The Death of Superman all in a 2+ hour movie. There's also the fact that some thought the DCEU was too grim to be a cinematic universe.
• Meanwhile, Universal fell into a trap of having so much faith in an idea (they had a friggin' logo with a theme song!) while making too many promises (Johnny Depp as the Invisible Man, anyone?) and showing very little substance. Like, how much of Tom Cruise's The Mummy dealt with the actual Mummy versus how much of that movie involved Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, and anyone else who WASN'T the mummy?

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Aug 3rd 2018 at 10:04:38 AM