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Black Panther Director Wanted To Use Kraven The Hunter


Black Panther is coming out next week and has gotten a ton of praise from critics, with many of them claiming that the film has the best villains in the MCU. With Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaw and Michael B. Jordan as Hate-Monger, fans cannot wait to see how they destroy the previous Marvel villains. However, if director Ryan Coogler got his way, we could have seen a classic Spider-Man villain in the film.

Speaking with Yahoo! Movies UK, Coogler stated that he wanted to bring Kraven the Hunter to the big screen, citing an excellent arc from Christopher Priest's comic book run. However, he was denied the opportunity though, most likely due to odd relationship Sony and Marvel have when it comes to using Spider-Man.

"Being a Marvel fan, you want to grab all the characters. You realise there's contractual things. You don't have that character. There was a Christopher Priest run that was pretty heavy, there's a big scene where Panther's fighting Kraven, Kraven the Hunter. I've always loved Kraven the Hunter in almost every iteration. So there was a moment – ‘Can I grab Kraven?' – and they were ‘Nah, you don't have Kraven.' He was one where I thought ‘Oh, man.' But I don't even know if he would have worked in the movie we ended up with, this was the early days."

It's a shame that we won't be seeing Kraven in Coogler's film, though that might be for the best. The film is going for a more grounded tone with plenty of political intrigue ala James Bond, so going with Klaw and Hate-Monger was the right move in hindsight. Still, here's hoping we get to see Kraven in a future Spider-Man film.

Black Panther hits theaters on February 16.


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