Kraven the Hunter Almost Featured a Huge Venom Connection

The release of Kraven the Hunter marked the end of Sony's Spider-Man Universe; a collection of movies infamously known for not sharing any connections or nods between them. It's honestly impressive how we witnessed a crossover between Morbious and the MCU's Vulture first rather than watching Madame Web, Venom, or Kraven interact with each other. But the worst part? We didn't even know if any of these characters would eventually be brought together. The SSU felt directionless and lacked any real purpose behind it. However, things were almost (a bit) different in the Unvierse's latest and last movie.

A Kraven the Hunter scrapped scene featured dead symbiotes

Concept artist Jules Darriulat shared a jaw-dropping render that depicts a "dead planet" filled with many lifeless symbiotes lying on the ground. While the scene would seem to be pulled straight out of Venom: The Last Dance, it's instead part of a "canceled sequence" for Kraven the Hunter. So at some point in production, Kraven's movie would've also set up Knull as the big bad of the SSU as a whole—something that director Kelly Marcel also made clear when promoting Venom's trilogy capper.

While it would've definitely been amazing to see a connection between these franchises, it's easy to understand why this sequence was scrapped. After all, it would've felt incredibly shoehorned in at any point in the film. Maybe it would've made for an amazing post-credits scene—a common trope in superhero movies that was shockingly missing in Kraven the Hunter—but aside from that, there's no single place where it could've come up naturally. Had it made its way into the final cut, maybe we'd be comparing it to that out-of-place sequence in Avengers: Age of Ultron where Thor bathes in the waters of a cave and gets visions of the infinity stones.

Kraven the Hunter director, J. C. Chandor, always made his intentions clear to tell a good stand-alone story first and leave room for exciting crossovers later. While that is certainly well-intentioned and something that studios do as often as possible, the movie has only grossed $59 million at the global box office (at the time of writing this) on a $110 million budget without accounting for marketing expenses. That alone is enough to warrant no planned follow-up will ever see the light of day. Besides, with the death of the SSU, it's all but confirmed we won't see Aaron Taylor-Johnson' Kraven again any time soon.

But while the world's greatest hunter suffered from a poor theatrical run, the same cannot be said for the Lethal Protector. Venom's trilogy might have not been loved by critics, but they always turned in a profit for Sony. So that raises the question of whether Knull's storyline has the chance to be followed up elsewhere (perhaps on a different big-screen saga). Well, recent reports indicate that both the King in Black and Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock will make an appearance in the untitled Spider-Man 4, allowing the wall-crawler to carry on with the symbiote storyline afterward.

Sony's plan to create a whole interconnected universe where Knull is at the front and center didn't pay off. But, at least, we could see the conclusion to that setup in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Now it's just a matter of waiting and finding out if the reports turned out to be true. As for Kraven; the best-case scenario would be for a new iteration of the character to finally cross paths with Tom Holland's Spider-Man and star in a loose adaptation of the Kraven's Last Hunt storyline. Now, wouldn't that be better than to see Sergei face off against the Rhino?

Spider-Man 4 will be released on Jul. 24, 2026.