Aaron Taylor-Johnson to play as Kraven the Hunter in Spider-Man spin-off movie

Aaron Taylor-Johnson will reportedly star in a new Spider-Man spin-off movie Kraven the Hunter.

As reported by Variety, Taylor-Johnson, who famously played Wanda's brother Pietro Maximoff (Quicksilver) in 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron, has been cast to play the iconic villain in the upcoming film. The project is being directed by J.C. Chandor and is slated to premiere on Jan. 13, 2023.

Created by Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, the infamous villain first debuted in 1964's The Amazing Spider-Man #15. Kraven, also known as Sergie Kravinoff, is a Russian hunter who took a herbal potion that allowed him to enhance his strength, speed, and agility. Apart from gaining physical powers, the potion also enabled Kraven to decelerate his aging process. 

As a supervillain, Kraven decided to hunt Spider-Man in order to restore the honor of his family name. He later joined Doc Octopus' Sinister Six, which includes Sandman, Vulture, Electro, and Mysterio, in a bid to defeat the web-crawler.

Apart from his role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Taylor-Johnson's film credits include Mark Millar's Kick-Ass and Christopher Nolan's Tenet. According to Variety, Taylor-Johnson's performance in the upcoming film Bullet Train opposite Brad Pitt impressed studio executives from Sony that “they signed the actor for multiple films as Kraven.”

Kraven the Hunter is among the upcoming Spider-Man projects being developed by Sony. Other spin-off movies already underway include Tom Hardy's Venom 2: Let There be Carnage and Jared Leto's Morbius.

(Images from IMDB, Marvel)