Kraven may be the world’s greatest hunter, but the comic book villain failed to reach the top of the box office charts.

Sony’s “Kraven the Hunter,” a superhero spinoff starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Spider-Man’s infamous foe, opened behind already low expectations at No. 3 with $11 million in 3,211 theaters. It landed the worst debut for Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters behind the failure “Madame Web” ($15.3 million) and received some of the worst grades ever from critics and audiences, with a tragic 15% on Rotten Tomatoes and a “C.” for the franchise. Grade on CinemaScore. Such a reception signals that “Kraven” won’t see a rebound later in December unless a holiday miracle occurs.

“Kraven the Hunter” fared even worse at the international box office, ranking fourth among Hollywood grosses with $15 million from 21,500 theaters in 60 markets.

“Kraven the Hunter” is Sony’s third Spider-Man adaptation of the year this year, following “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 didn’t live up to the quality of its predecessors. Otherwise, Sony has yet to produce a comic book hit from its spin-offs led by third-generation Spider-Man villains. The studio also stumbled into 2022 with “Morbius,” a vampire-inspired thriller starring Jared Leto in the role of the fanged villain — another of Peter Parker’s infamous enemies. These ambitions began at a time when superheroes were all the rage at the box office, but ticket sales for too many current comic book tentpoles were decidedly earthbound.

The long-delayed “Kraven” cost more than $110 million to produce (it was greenlit at $90 million, but rose sharply after last year’s writer and actor strikes), despite being co-financed by TSG. Directed by JC Chandor, the R-rated film 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.

“As the superhero genre has declined over the past five years, ‘Morbius,’ ‘Madame Web’ and ‘Kraven’ have led the race to the bottom,” said David A. Gross, who runs film consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “Kraven’s budget has been reduced in line with market realities, but it is still too high for such an outcome.”

Also this weekend, Warner Bros.’ anime fantasy film “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” stumbled into fifth place with $4.6 million from 2,602 theaters in its opening weekend. The film has a modest budget of $30 million, so any losses during its theatrical release won’t be ruinous for the studio. Plus, box office wealth wasn’t necessarily the catalyst for “War of the Rohirrim,” which is based on JRR Tolkien characters and set 183 years before the events of Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and was given the green light. The animated 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 for 2026 and beyond. The first of these films, tentatively titled Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, will be directed by and star Andy Serkis.

“War of the Rohirrim,” which has mixed reviews and a tepid “B” on CinemaScore, 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.

Despite the two new additions, Disney’s “Moana 2” retained the top spot in the domestic box office charts for the third weekend in a row with $26.6 million from 4,000 theaters. The Polynesian-set animated adventure, originally commissioned for streaming, has become a box office success with $337.5 million in North America and $717 million worldwide to date. It’s already the fifth-highest-grossing film of the year domestically and the fourth-biggest worldwide release.

Universal’s “Wicked” adaptation grossed more than twice as much as “Kraven,” even though the big-budget musical has already been in theaters for a month. “Wicked” remained in second place with a whopping $22.5 million from 3,689 theaters in its fourth weekend of release. The film, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, has grossed $359 million domestically and more than $524 million worldwide. It is 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). ) the second largest remake worldwide.

Paramount’s “Gladiator II” landed at No. 3 with $7.8 million in its fourth frame. The quarter-century-in-the-making sequel to Ridley Scott’s 2000 Oscar-winning epic “Gladiator” has 145.9 million in North America US dollars and grossed more than $398.5 million worldwide.

Heading into the coveted holiday period, overall box office receipts are 4.8% behind 2023 and 23% behind 2019, according to Comscore. “Moana 2” and “Glicked” (the portmanteau for the two dual-release-date films and spiritual sequel to “Barbenheimer” ) will continue to dominate multiplex cinema through the holiday season, when Disney’s “The Lion King” prequel “Mufasa,” Paramount’s ” “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” and A24’s erotic thriller “Babygirl” all open on December 20th. A few days later, Focus Features’ “Nosferatu” remake and Searchlight’s Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” starring Timothee Chalamet, arrives on December 25th to close out the year.

Until then, there will only ever be Moana, Glinda and Elphaba.