Ryan Coogler Wanted Kraven the Hunter to Appear in ‘Black Panther’
The wait for the highly-anticipated next film in the MCU, Black Panther, is nearly over! Officially hitting theaters a week from today, director Ryan Coogler revealed in an interview that there was a point where he wanted to have Kraven the Hunter as one of the film’s villains.
In an interview with Yahoo! Movies UK, Coogler said, “Being a Marvel fan, you want to grab all the characters.”
A fan of Marvel Comics himself, Coogler wanted to have the famed fight scene from Christopher Priest’s Black Panther run between T’Challa and Kraven to the big screen in the film’s early stages. Unfortunately, because of contractual elements, Coogler wasn’t able to incorporate Kraven into Black Panther.
Kraven the Hunter (Courtesy of Marvel Comics)
The director said, “You realize 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.”
What do you think – would you have liked to see Kraven the Hunter as one of T’Challa’s foes in Black Panther? Be sure to let us know what you think in the comment section below.
Make sure you go see Black Panther when the film claws into theaters on February 16!
Source: Yahoo! Movies UK
