The very first super-villain Spider-Man ever fought in Marvel Comics — before Doctor Octopus, or Green Goblin, or Sandman, or any of the other villains who’ve appeared in Spidey movies — was Chameleon. In The Amazing Spider-Man #1 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Spider-Man finds his reputation ruined by a man who has disguised himself as his exact double. It turns out to be the Chameleon, who has the ability to perfectly approximate the appearance of anyone. (At first, he was just a guy with a lot of masks; later he actually gained the ability to physically change his face however he wanted.)

With many of Spidey’s more famous villains having already been claimed by previous movies, Chameleon — real name Dmitri Smerdyakov — will finally get to make his own big-screen appearance in the upcoming Kraven the Hunter movie from Sony. Aaron Taylor-Johnson will play the title role.

According to DeadlineThe White Lotus and Fear Street’s Fred Hechinger has been cast as Chameleon:

Hechinger would play the brother of Kraven aka Chameleon in the movie. J.C. Chandor is directing the pic with Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach producing. Art Marcum & Matt Holloway and Richard Wenk penned the screenplay.

Although they each debuted separately, Kraven and Chameleon began appearing together in The Amazing Spider-Man comics, and were eventually revealed to be half-brothers. Chameleon was also involved in one of the more infamous Spider-Man storylines, when he built perfectly lifelike androids (don’t ask me how) of Peter Parker’s long-lost mother and father, and used them as part of a plot to uncover Spider-Man’s secret identity and to destroy him.

Spider-Man himself will almost certainly not appear in the Kraven movie, just as he didn’t appear in the Venom films and isn’t expected to show up in the Morbius movie. So it will be task of J.C. Chandor to make Kraven and Chameleon interesting when they don’t have Spider-Man to fight. The Kraven the Hunter movie is scheduled for release in theaters on January 13, 2023.

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