Sony @NYCC Shows Off ‘Karate Kid: Legends’ First Look, ‘Kraven The Hunter’ & ‘Venom 3’

Sony made a splash at New York Comic Con on Friday, exclusively showcasing the first trailer for “Karate Kid: Legends” to the room. The film reunites original star Ralph Macchio’s Danny LaRusso from the 1984 movie and the 2010 reboot’s Jackie Chan’s Mr. Han. The trailer begins in a martial arts academy, where Chan’s instructor from the 2010 film shows up to recruit the movie’s young star, Ben Wang. The action quickly switches to New York and a montage showing the city in some of its more intimidating moments, including bullies on the subway.

The film is billed as reuniting all the Karate Kid worlds.

Sony also showed off exclusive footage from the Marvel action movie “Kraven the Hunter,” starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who made a surprise appearance at the studio’s panel. The film lived up to its R rating in a pair of bloody clips shown exclusively to the NYCC audience. Sony screened the first seven minutes of the film, which begins in a Russian prison colony that Kraven enters as an inmate before revealing his true purpose: to kill an imprisoned mob boss. Kraven does so with brutal theatricality, driving the tooth from the head of a Siberian tiger rug into his victim’s neck. A second clip shows him making short, gory work of a commando-style team sent into a forest to try to either capture or kill him. Director J.C. Chandor described the project as both a character study and an opportunity for “some really intense grindhouse.”

Pic’s blurb: Kraven’s (Taylor-Johnson) complex relationship with his ruthless father, Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe), starts him down a path of vengeance with brutal consequences, motivating him to become not only the greatest hunter in the world but also one of its most feared.

Chandor told the attendees at the Empire Stage, “Aaron Taylor-Johnson was born to play Kraven.” “He’s real, he’s not a visual effects monster, he’s a man who has made a choice to be a hunter,” Taylor-Johnson said, taking the stage. In regards to whether Kraven is a conservationist, the Golden Globe-winning “Nocturnal Animals” actor said, “Like all great hunters, Kraven respects his prey, top of the food chain… he’s a hunter, not a poacher. Like every hunter knows, sometimes you have to call the herd, to call order. Once he applies to human beings, it becomes a dark story.”

“Kraven the Hunter” opens December 13. Sony saved “Venom: The Last Dance” for last, with star/co-writer Tom Hardy, director/scribe Kelly Marcel, Juno Temple, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. “It’s sad to see him go,” said Hardy about his last go-round as the anti-hero. Marcel says, “we’re always starting with the comics and the books, it always starts there.” Hardy joked that he just talks at Marcel, while she acknowledged that there’s “a lot of drawings.” Hardy expressed his adoration for playing the part, as he’s deeply involved in the “fiber of it.”

Part three picks up with Eddie and Venom as fugitives on the run, outed from the big finale fight in “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.” Ejiofor plays a military man in the threequel “dealing with these creatures.” As Dr. Payne, Temple’s character doesn’t agree with Ejiofor’s. Temple and Hardy starred in “Dark Knight Rises” but acknowledged that they had never worked together on a given production day on that set. Marcel teased that while this is the last Venom movie, there “are other symbiote stories,” and this threequel will likely nod its way to what’s next.