Plenty of people know Russell Crowe from movies like Gladiator, Cinderella Man and American Gangster, but in 2013, the actor jumped into the superhero movie realm for the first time to play Jor-El, Superman’s Kryptonian father, in Man of Steel. Then last year, Russell Crowe revealed that he’d be lending his performing talents to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Zeus for Thor: Love and Thunder. Now Crowe has added yet another superhero film franchise to his resume, as he’ll be appearing in Kraven the Hunter.
This will be the fourth movie in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, with Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage having come and gone, and the Jared Leto-led Morbius slated to arrive in April. It was announced last May that Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who previously starred as Quicksilver in Avengers: Age of Ultron, will bring Kraven the Hunter to life in live action, and now he finally has a co-star for the project. THR didn’t share any details on who Russell Crowe will play in Kraven the Hunter, but did note that many of the movie’s main characters will be Kraven’s family members.
This isn’t to say that Russell Crowe will necessarily be playing a member of said family, but working within that metric, there’s certainly enough of an age gap between him and Aaron Taylor-Johnson for the former potentially appear as the latter’s father or uncle. It’s also possible Crowe could be playing Kraven the Hunter’s main villain, although since the title character primarily faces off against Spider-Man or other established superheroes in the comics, this would likely need to be an original character. Hey, why not combine both and have Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven fight his antagonistic father?
We’ll just have to wait and see how Russell Crowe specifically fits into the Kraven the Hunter picture, but now the actor has his foot in Hollywood’s three biggest superhero universes. As things currently stand, audiences have only seen his work inside the DCEU, as Crowe played Jor-El at the beginning of Man of Steel, as well as an artificial intelligence program modeled after the Kryptonian scientist that informed Kal-El/Clark Kent about his alien heritage and aided him in his conflict against General Zod in the present-day narrative. MCU fans will get to see his portrayal of Zeus when Thor: Love and Thunder comes out in July, and hopefully this appearance paves the way for Hercules and other Olympian characters to be introduced.
As far as Kraven the Hunter behind-the-scenes talent goes, Triple Frontier’s J.C. Chandor is directing the movie off of a script written by Iron Man duo Art Marcum & Matt Holloway and The Equalizer’s Richard Wenk. Since Kraven the Hunter is slated for a January 13, 2023 release, filming will obviously begin soon, so it stands to reason we’ll be getting more casting updates in the coming weeks. This Russell Crowe news follows nearly a week after it was reported that Dakota Johnson is being lined up to lead Madame Web, another forthcoming entry in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.
CinemaBlend will pass along any notable updates on Kraven the Hunter’s progress, but for now, there are plenty of 2022 movie releases to keep fans entertained for the near future.
