“Kraven the Hunter” could lose its claws in its big screen debut.

The comic spinoff, set in Sony’s Marvel universe, is aiming to gross a meager $13 million to $15 million in its opening weekend from 3,200 theaters. Projections suggest that “Kraven the Hunter” could rival February’s failure “Madame Web” (debuting to $15.3 million) for the ignominious title of lowest opening among Sony-produced Marvel adventures. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays the eponymous antihero in the R-rated film, which faced a litany of pandemic- and strike-related release date delays on its long and arduous journey to theaters. “Kraven” cost more than $110 million to produce (it was greenlit at $90, but rose sharply after last year’s writer and actor strikes), which ended up being well over the $80 million price tag US dollars for “Madame Web” was, but far below the price of the competition Studios like Disney or Warner Bros. usually pump into superhero tentpoles. “Kraven,” the first R-rated film in Sony’s Spider-Man universe, was co-financed by TSG.

Directed by JC Chandor, “Kraven the Hunter” explores the origins of the comic book character’s alter ego, Sergei Kravinoff, including his difficult relationship with his crime boss father (Russell Crowe) and his quest to become the greatest Hunter. “Kraven” is Sony’s third Spider-Man superhero adaptation of the year, arriving a few months after “Venom: The Last Dance” in October. The Tom Hardy-led alien symbiote trilogy has proven critical and commercially successful, even if the third and final film failed to live up to the quality of its predecessors. Otherwise, Sony has yet to produce a comic hit with characters. The studio also stumbled in 2022 with “Morbius,” a vampire-inspired thriller starring Jared Leto as the fanged villain – one of Peter Parker’s infamous adversaries.

Also this weekend, Warner Bros.’ anime fantasy film “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” is aiming for a single-digit $6 million to $7 million in its opening weekend in 3,500 theaters. The film, based on JRR Tolkien characters, is set 183 years before the events of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and has a modest budget of $30 million. The film, which has mixed reviews, failed in its international debut last weekend with just $2 million from 31 countries. This weekend it will be expanded to 42 additional offshore markets.

Box office success wasn’t necessarily the reason “War of the Rohirrim” was given the green light. The film was developed and expedited to ensure that New Line Cinema did not lose the film rights to Tolkien’s novels while Jackson and the teams behind the “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” trilogies worked on two new live-action films. Action films for 2026 and beyond. The first of these films, tentatively titled Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, is directed by and stars Andy Serkis.

Despite the two new additions, Disney’s “Moana 2” wants to maintain first place in the domestic cinema charts for the third weekend in a row. The goal is to add a whopping $25 to $28 million in the third frame. The Polynesian-set adventure, originally commissioned for streaming, has become a box office success with $300 million in North America and $600 million worldwide to date.

Meanwhile, Universal’s “Wicked” adaptation will compete with “Kraven the Hunter” for second place. The film is expected to gross a respectable $18-20 million in its fourth weekend of release. The high-budget musical, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, has grossed $322 million domestically and $457 million worldwide. It is already the highest-grossing Broadway adaptation in domestic box office history, ahead of 1978’s “Grease” ($188.62 million) and behind 2008’s “Mamma Mia” ($611 million). Dollar) is the second largest new production on stage in the world.

Paramount’s “Gladiator II,” the other half of “Glicked” – the portmanteau for the two dual-release films and the spiritual sequel to “Barbenheimer” – is expected to collect $6 million to $7 million for the fourth film. A quarter-century in the making, the sequel to Ridley Scott’s 2000 Oscar-winning epic “Gladiator” has grossed $132 million in North America and $368.4 million worldwide.

Both halves of “Glicked” have big budgets – Universal spent $300 million on two “Wicked” films, while Paramount paid over $250 million for “Gladiator II” – so they need outsized returns to make their justify prices.