Aaron Taylor-Johnson cast as lead role in Spider-Man spin-off movie Kraven the Hunter

Aaron Taylor-Johnson has been cast as the lead role in Marvel's upcoming Spider-Man spin-off movie, Kraven the Hunter, Sony Pictures has announced.

You'll recognize Taylor-Johnson from his previous role in the MCU; that of Pietro Maximoff, aka Quicksilver. The actor played Quicksilver in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron. 

You'll also recognize Taylor-Johnson from his roles in Bullet Train alongside Brad Pitt, Christopher Nolan's Tenet, and 2014's Godzilla starring fellow MCU alum Elizabeth Olsen and Bryan Cranston. According to a report from Deadline, Taylor-Johnson caught the attention of Sony Pictures when it saw early footage of his upcoming action flick Bullet Train.

His latest turn in the MCU is as Sergei Kravinoff, aka Kraven the Hunter, one of Spider-Man's most notorious enemies, who's now getting his own solo film. The supervillain is also the formidable half-brother of the Chameleon and starred in one of Spider-Man's darkest storylines in comics. It isn't clear what part of the character's comic book history will be explored in the movie, but there's plenty of source material for a darker-than-usual MCU movie.

Before he started going after Spider-Man, Kraven was an excessively violent big game hunter who ingested a mystical serum that dramatically increased his strength and slowed his aging. Kraven and Spider-Man have a long history of hard-fought battles, so the supervillain's standalone movie could take any number of forms.

Kraven the Hunter didn't quite make the cut on our list of the best Marvel supervillains of all time, but that doesn't mean he won't make for an excellent supervillain movie.