AARON TAYLOR-JOHNSON

HAS THE SONY MARVEL-VERSE IN HIS SIGHTS…

Why the Brit star has a Kraven to play a villain…

Aaron Taylor-Johnson already boasts two comic-book credits to his name. He played dork knight Dave Lizewski in 2010’s Kick-Ass, then later graduated to a less DIY role as Pietro Maximoff, the Quicksilver who isn’t Evan Peters, for Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Soon, he will add another trophy to the comic-book shelf in the muscular and leonine shape of Sergei Kravinoff, better known as Kraven The Hunter.

Joining Venom and Morbius in Sony’s expanded universe of villainous spin-offs, Kraven is a big-game hunter made super-strong, age-resistant and animalistic by the ingestion of a serum. A good threat for Spider-Man, in short, should the Sony and Marvel Studios Spidey-verses cross webs down the line. In any case, the dailies from Taylor-Johnson’s performance in David Leitch’s incoming Brad Pitt hitman film Bullet Train impressed studio execs enough to give him the mane role.

For Taylor-Johnson, the supermenace, originally spawned in 1964, is a natural evolution in a career of

many peaks. Ever since breakthrough roles ranging from Shanghai Knights’ young Charlie Chaplin to Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging’s “sex god”, he’s proved a capable and committed shape-shifter, ever-ready to stamp his imprint on mainstream, indie and prestige roles for a widespread haul of top-prize directors.

He was suitably boyish as John Lennon in Nowhere Boy and altogether more groomed as Anna Karenina’s Count Vronsky. He’s proved good value in action too, adding close-cropped military types in Godzilla and The Wall to his MCU appointment. A key role in Kingsman prequel The King’s Man also awaits. Meanwhile, his work for a brace of storied directors includes an arrestingly scuzzy role in Tom Ford’s awards-grade neo-noir Nocturnal Animals and another battle-ready military man in Christopher Nolan’s Tenet.

After Bullet Train hurtles into cinemas, Taylor-Johnson will add J.C. Chandor (Triple Frontier) to that list for Kraven The Hunter, which, if Tom Hardy’s Venom is any indication, should give him the chance to act up a storm and knock audiences for (Sinister) six. “It’s nice to play unpredictable,” he’s said. Good plan: after all, you catch the bigger game that way.

ETA | 13 JANUARY 2023 / KRAVEN THE HUNTER COMES OUT IN TWO YEARS, THE KING’S MAN WILL BE RELEASED IN DECEMBER 2021. BULLET TRAIN IS CURRENTLY TBC.