Sony’s Spider-Man Universe isn’t likely something that was ever directly planned. It’s just what’s come of Sony and Marvel handing the rights to Peter Parker’s alter ego back and forth the way that they have. While Spidey is technically now a part of the MCU, Sony has been making more and more movies that center around Marvel characters usually associated with the web-slinger in one way or another. Venom was the first, Morbius is the latest follow-up coming in a month. Then Kraven the Hunter will arrive next January.

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Kraven the Hunter may not be arriving in theaters for almost a year, but it’s clear that production is about to ramp up, based on the number of cast members that have been named in the last few weeks. Deadline reports that Alessandro Nivola is the latest addition, playing a yet unnamed antagonist to Aaron Taylor Johnson’s Kraven the Hunter main character. Nivola’s most recent big project was in The Soprano’s prequel, The Many Saints of Newark. Sony hasn’t confirmed the casting of Nivola so for the moment, there isn’t any word on just who the villain the actor will be portraying is. That’s made more complicated by the fact that Kraven the Hunter is best known as being a villain in the Spider-Man comic universe.

Now that Nivola has joined Russell Crowe, Ariana DeBose, and Fred Hechinger on the cast of Kraven the Hunter, it seems likely that the main members of the cast have all been filled out. Like Nivola, just who Crowe will be playing isn’t known just yet. However, it is public knowledge that DeBose will play voodoo priestess Calypso.

It’s also clear that Nivola isn’t going to be the only villain who will take center stage in the upcoming film. It’s possible Crowe is going to play a baddie as well, but for certain, Hechinger is going to be donning the mask of a baddie because he’s been slated to play the Chameleon. Now that the cast has such a star-studded crew, it seems likely more information about the latest entry in the ever-growing Spider-Man cinematic universe will be coming relatively soon.

Kraven the Hunter is scheduled to be released in theaters on January 13th, 2023.

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Source: Deadline