It's no secret that Black Panther director Ryan Coogler wanted to use Kraven the Hunter as a villain in his Oscar-nominated 2018 movie. However, very little has ever been revealed about what role the sinister Spider-Man foe would've played.
Talking to Josh Horowitz on his Happy Sad Confused podcast, the filmmaker revealed that Marvel Studios had already chosen Erik Killmonger and Avengers: Age of Ultron's Ulysses Klaue as Black Panther's villains when he came on board.
However, when executives started wondering whether Klaue was the right fit, it was then that Coogler brought up an old favourite of his: Kraven.
"No. [Michael B. Jordan] was always gonna be Killmonger," Coogler said, dismissing speculation that the Creed star almost played Kraven. "When I took that job, Joe Robert Cole, who's my co-writer on both the Panthers, [he] had been working with Marvel and they had a line, so when I showed up, it was like, 'Hey, we have our villains. Our villains are Klaue and Eric Killmonger.' That had been decided upon."
"The outline of villains was Claw and Kilmonger, but they weren't sure. They weren't sure. Klaue felt slightly modular to them, and obviously, it was the great Andy Serkis, so I'm hyped to work with him," he continued. "[I] wanted to base it on the Christopher Priest run of Panther, and his run starts with Panther and Kraven in the kitchen. That's the first thing. It's Ross, Panther, and Kraven fighting in the Kitchen."
Rather than use Sergei Kravinoff as Black Panther's main villain, Coogler viewed him as a good fit for the role that Klaw ultimately plays. All that was left to do was ask Sony Pictures for permission to use the character.
"I'm a big Spider-Man fan, especially Spider-Man: The Animated Series. Kraven is in that. He's also great in the books," Coogler shared. "I was like, 'Yo, can I have Kraven in the movie?' They were like, 'We don't think so, but let us check.' So, they hit Sony, and Sony was like, 'Absolutely not.' They came back to me like, 'Yo, we can't do it.' So, I was like, 'Okay.'"
Even though Marvel Studios and Sony were working together at this point to share Spider-Man, it's not overly surprising that Kraven was off the table. He was one of several characters that the studio believed were good picks for a solo movie, likely explaining why he also wasn't used in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Kraven the Hunter was finally released in theaters last year, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson taking on the title role in an R-rated adaptation. The movie was a critical and commercial flop, and the character has now been shelved.
Had Coogler got his way, the villain could have been introduced in Black Panther, potentially setting the stage for Marvel Studios to continue his story in a future Spider-Man outing. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. As for Klaue, he was betrayed and killed by Killmonger, ending Serkis' run in the MCU.