'Kraven,' 'Karate Kid' and 'Venom' Get Close-Ups at New York Comic Con

Sony has unveiled the new look of three of its upcoming titles – Venom: The Last Dance, The Karate Kid: The LegendAnd Kraven the Hunter — during an hour-long presentation at this year's New York Comic Con.

Friday night's panel, featuring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, director Jesse Chandor, Tom Hardy, Juno Temple, Chiwetel Ejiofor and director Kelly Marcel, was accompanied by footage of the opening requirementA trailer for this The Karate Kid: The LegendAnd what happens when a clip and discussion poison A horse takes over The Last Dance.

Chander closed the presentation, “It's like an old gangster movie, basically this classic kind of ride, but obviously with a bit of a Marvel spin. It's not a peachy Kraven. You don't do that. You have to go brutal with Kraven.”

He added of the December 13 release: “It's not just Kraven. We got the chance to dive into the Marvel characters in a really cool way,” he said. “We wanted to see the spirit of the characters that the fans wanted and bring it to the screen in a new way… We went with a tonal balance where as a storyteller and a director, I know the actors in every performance. , we are not breaking the fourth wall. We believe in this story that it's really happening.”

Speaking to the film's R-rating, he shared his interest in being more mature based on the comics.”When you get those books. It's beautiful, quite intense. When the studio gave us a chance to see if we wanted to do it as R[-rated] film, we were like, yeah,” he said. “It was an amazing opportunity. It opened up some really intense kind of grindhouse stuff on the one hand, and then also opened up some really intense character elements.”

Regarding casting Taylor-Johnson, the director noted that there was a real challenge. “Finding an actor who has the ability to stand toe-to-toe with so many of these other actors in the movie and have the chops from a performance standpoint, but also be able to physically move in a way that's this kind of animalistic dance,” he said. “He was born to play Kraven.”

Johnson, after appearing on stage to wild cheers, spoke of Craven's “iconic image”, particularly his physicality. “Playing a villain is always interesting and I think it comes with a lot more depth and complexity. He is real. He's not an alien, he's not a visual VFX monster. He is a man who has chosen to be a hunter, a killer. I think it comes with a lot of layers,” he noted. “Kraven is a hunter, not a hunter, and as every great hunter knows, sometimes you have to beat the herd to maintain order. Once you start applying it to humans, it becomes a pretty dark story.”

Among the footage teased was the film's opening, which saw Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Kraven taken to a prison colony. There, Kraven receives a rousing welcome, with fellow inmates hitting their cages from above before meeting his cellmate, who notes that the last man was there for only a month, and Kraven promises that he will only be there a few days. He encounters several newly-made enemies before meeting with a gang leader in the colony, who – after an exchange of words – traps Kraven inside. This sets off an intense fight sequence in which Kravev viciously takes out the entire room before taking the battle to the outer hallway, where he finally breaks free of the prison, climbing its walls before escaping through the tundra to a wall of ice.

A second clip shows Craven armed in a house outside the woods, preparing to hunt down several men with guns by shooting wildlife. The hunt involves him using a bear trap to take out one of his enemies, along with a hanging log covered in spikes – all before a helicopter chases him down from above.

The Karate Kid The latter began with a trailer opened by Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio. Star Ben Wong helmed most of the footage, which heavily teased the film's focus on family, fights and stunt work. “You only have one question in life: Is it worth fighting for? Or not?” Can be heard saying. The film opens on May 28, 2025 and reunites Chan – the star of the 2010 The Karate Kid movie, and Macchio, who helmed the original film, as well as the Netflix hit Cobra Kai.

Its fans poison The treatment was in new footage from the third installment of the Tom Hardy-led franchise, which has already released a trailer teasing the final chapter of the symbiotic relationship. During the panel, Hardy reflected on playing the character for more than half a decade. “I absolutely loved playing Eddie,” he told the crowd. “It was one of the best things in my life so it will be sad to see it go.”

Hardy also talked about how he and director Marcel work together on films, often taking an idea that they go back to again and again, before Marcel teases where the film will take fans. “We found him where we left them at last Poison 2” he teased the film, which will go on floors next week. “Now they are fugitives and fugitives. The Last Dance A road trip movie where they're chased by people from our world and other worlds, and the longer they're together, the more they realize that being together puts the world in danger.”

Ejiofor and Temple also teased their characters, noting that Ejiofor's character is “a military man. He's incredibly tough and articulate in dealing with these animals and trying to put this facility together,” he said. Temple's character, who shares the facility with him, works scientifically, but the two don't always see eye-to-eye.

During the panel, Hardy also explained how the team filmed his scenes with Venom on his head, which involved multiple earpieces that included a recording of his Venom voice and Marcel's direction. The pair are usually quite collaborative on and off-screen, including during the film's writing process, which Hardy explained during the 20-minute presentation.

“I came up with these fantastic ideas,” Hardy said. “So what I'll do is talk to Kelly and I'll keep talking until Kelly says, 'That's enough.' Then I'm like, 'Yeah he got it.' Then Kelly goes off and comes back with something I never meant to say, but it's all perfectly formatted, and I pat myself on the back… With Kelly, my ideas turn into something completely different.”

“About how it goes. There are also some drawings involved,” added Marcel.

Hardy revealed that he appreciated their partnership and celebrated his rise from co-writer to director. “I've been working with Kelly for 20 years or something. We started trying to get our first job together. I just want to say she's super talented. I back her a million percent.

“I've been with Tom for seven years on this journey, so these films mean everything to us,” he said of directing for the first time. “I was really grateful to Sony for letting me see it from start to finish, especially as the end of the trilogy. It was a beautiful experience, and I really hope it opens the door for more female directors directing male-led action films.”

At the end of the panel, when the cast and creative team were asked if a Spider-Man crossover was in the cards, Marcel said, “I'd love to see Venom in Spider-Man but who knows.”

As for whether this was the end of the Venom arc, Marcel and Hardy confirmed that it was. “We always saw it as three films, and we wanted to tell the story of Eddie and Venom in three movies. Venom and Eddie's arc comes to a close here. But as we know, there's a lot of symbiote stories in canon, so there's a lot of places to go, and maybe there's a few Easter eggs here that start that journey,” teases Marcel.