10 Fascinating Facts About Black Panther (2018)

2. Kraven The Hunter Almost Appeared

When Coogler first came onboard the film and began writing the script, he was overwhelmed at the sheer number of potential characters and comic book stories he could use in the film.

As a longtime Black Panther and Marvel-in-general aficionado, he had so many favorites to choose from to help mold the story into the one he wanted to tell. And it turns out that initially, Coogler wanted to use none other than Kraven the Hunter in the film. As Coogler said;

"Being a Marvel fan, you want to grab all the characters. 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.”

The rights to Kraven are indeed owned by Sony still, who even as they play ball with Marvel regarding Spider-Man's inclusion in the MCU has still been quick to also keep characters specifically for themselves (see: Venom), so Kraven was off the table for Coogler. Interestingly, Coogler goes on to hint that the kind of role he originally envisioned Kraven in wound up being the part Andy Serkis' Klaw filled.