Spider-Noir

Premise

Ben Reilly, an aging private investigator, grapples with his past life as the only superhero in 1930s New York City, the Spider. When an exceptional case comes his way, Ben must become the Spider once more.

Cast and characters

Main

Nicolas Cage as Ben Reilly / The Spider:An older, grizzled version of Spider-Man who is a down on his luck private investigator and superhero from an alternate world based on 1930s New York City, who gained his superpowers when serving as a sergeant in World War I. He was bitten by a feral mutated human-spider while liberating soldiers from a German experimentation POW camp, changing his real name to the alias "Ben Reilly" after the war ended. He returns to being the Spider after stepping away from the role five years prior following his fiancée's murder. Executive producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller described Ben as "older and jaded, and not afraid to punch a guy in the face drunkenly" and someone who "already had his Chinatown disillusionment moment" many years prior, with co-showrunner Oren Uziel saying despite trying to move beyond his past, it keeps returning "to haunt him". Cage approached his performance as "70 percent Humphrey Bogart, and 30 percent Bugs Bunny", believing Ben was "a spider trying to cosplay as a human". He also looked at actors James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson for the performance. Cage was inspired by Bogart's performance in the film The Big Sleep (1946) when Ben goes undercover.

Lamorne Morris as Joe "Robbie" Robertson:Ben's friend and a hard-working freelance journalist who pursues riskier stories to garner attention and progress his career. Uziel said Robbie is optimistic and "thinks he's lucky, and it's all going to work out" with his investigations, compared to Ben who is the opposite and a cynic.

Li Jun Li as Cat Hardy:A femme fatale nightclub singer and love interest to both Ben and Flint Marko, who plots to kill Silvermane. Cat's character was inspired by actresses Anna May Wong, Rita Hayworth, Lauren Bacall, and Kim Basinger.

Karen Rodriguez as Janet Ruiz:Ben's secretary and fellow investigator. Uziel likened Janet to Effie Perine from the film The Maltese Falcon (1941), a character "that can be helpful, that the P.I. can lean on, that can be hard on him, but loves him".

Abraham Popoola as Lonnie Lincoln / Tombstone: Marko's friend and Silvermane's henchman, who possesses a near-indestructible armored crocodilia-like skin that grants him superhuman strength and durability.

Jack Huston as Flint Marko / Sandman: Cat's bodyguard and lover who becomes Silvermane's henchman and has the ability to transform his own body into sand.

Recurring

Amanda Schull as Ruby J. Williams: Ben's deceased fiancée who was killed by a criminal Ben caught, prompting him to retire the Spider identity

Lukas Haas as Winston: Silvermane's right-hand man

Cary Christopher as Frankie: A young newsboy Ben and Janet take care of who also helps in their cases

Jack Mikesell as James "Jimmy" Addison: A criminal with pyrokinesis abilities

Cameron Britton as Patrick Donegal: A PI who briefly met Ben

Michael Kostroff as Alfred Morris: The incumbent Mayor of New York City running for reelection while having to contend with Silvermane

Scott MacArthur as Perry: One of Silvermane's henchmen

Joe Massingill as Pudge: One of Silvermane's henchmen

Richard Robichaux as Howard Walters: The editor of the Daily Bugle

Whitney Rice as Vera Addison: Jimmy's widow who used his money for her lavish lifestyle

Andrew Lewis Caldwell as Dirk Leyden / Megawatt: A criminal with the ability to absorb and release electricity

Amy Aquino as Dr. Alethea Faber: A doctor trying to find a cure for the metahumans

Andrew Robinson as Ogden Faber: Dr. Faber's secretary, later revealed to be her son who rapidly aged from the experiments that created the other superpowered.

Production

Development

Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Tony Vinciquerra stated in March 2019 that Sony's shared universe of Spider-Man–related properties, known as Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU), would be expanding to television with a set of Marvel Comics projects developed by Sony Pictures Television. The studio was "essentially internally auditioning" characters from the 900 it could access to decide which medium they would appear in. After their work on Sony's animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), Phil Lord and Christopher Miller signed their production company Lord Miller Productions to an overall deal with Sony Pictures Television in April 2019 to develop multiple television series for the studio, including their Marvel-based series, which could potentially include characters from Into the Spider-Verse as well as live-action properties. Select projects would be produced in conjunction with Amy Pascal, a frequent producer of the Spider-Man films, with the intention for Lord and Miller to reboot the Spider-Man property for television. By September 2020, Sony was in talks with Prime Video for the latter to be the streaming distributor for Sony's "suite" of Marvel-based television series.

Sony Pictures Television was revealed in February 2023 to be developing a television series based on the Spider-Man Noir character for MGM+ and Prime Video via Amazon MGM Studios. This version of the character is from a different universe than the one seen in the Spider-Verse animated films. Miller believed a series based on the character was "the biggest no-brainer of all time". Oren Uziel, a close friend of Lord and Miller's who was a fan of film noir, was writing for the series and developing it with fellow executive producers Lord, Miller, and Pascal through their production companies Lord Miller Productions and Pascal Pictures. Miller said Uziel had a "perfect" take on approaching the series. In December, Amazon hired Steve Lightfoot, who was the showrunner of the Marvel Television series The Punisher (2017–2019), to serve as co-showrunner and an executive producer alongside Uziel; the two are credited as the series' developers along with Lord, Miller, and Pascal.

Amazon announced at its upfronts presentation in May 2024 that the series had been ordered and titled Noir, and that Harry Bradbeer had joined as an executive producer and would direct the first two episodes. Nzingha Stewart served as another director. Additional executive producers are Aditya Sood and Dan Shear of Lord Miller, star Nicolas Cage, and Pavlina Hatoupis. In July, the series was retitled Spider-Noir to better highlight its connections to the Spider-Man universe, and was revealed to consist of eight 45-minute long episodes. Lesley Goldberg at Puck reported in August 2024 that Sony was not expected to renew its overall deal with Lord and Miller after the duo disagreed with the studio on the series' budget. By the end of 2024, Sony was reported to no longer be developing further films for its franchise at that time and was instead focusing on other projects, such as Spider-Noir.

Writing

Christopher Chen, Megan Liao, Tori Sampson, Jennifer Frazin, Jack Henderson, and Bruce Marshall Romans served as writers on the series, alongside Uziel and Lightfoot; Romans previously worked with Lightfoot on The Punisher. Miller said in May 2023 that development, along with the writers' room, was put on hold because of the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike that began earlier that month, and that work would resume after the strike concluded; the writers' strike ended in late September 2023.

Spider-Noir is set in an alternate world based on 1930s New York City, with Sony Pictures Television president Katherine Pope describing the series as a reimagining of the Spider-Man Noir character in the SSU. Upon the reveal of the series' development, Variety reported that it would be set in its own universe and that the series would focus on a different main character rather than Peter Parker, who is the identity of Spider-Man Noir in the comics. The main character is known as Ben Reilly, the name of a separate character in the comics who is a clone of Peter Parker and becomes the Scarlet Spider. The Reilly in Spider-Noir is not known as "Spider-Noir", but rather "The Spider" as a way to harken back to some of the early crimefighters in comics such as the Spirit and the Shadow. Uziel said one of the reasons for changing the name of the character from Parker to Reilly was to better fit with the series' noir tone, saying that "Peter Parker feels very synonymous with a high school kid. Boyish." Lord and Miller also said there were additional narrative reasons for changing the name that would be addressed in the series, while Cage said Spider-Noir would explain why Reilly "talks the way he talks" beyond "just mashing the flavors of 1930s film performance and Marvel iconography".

Casting

Lord and Miller said in May 2023 that there was potential for Nicolas Cage to portray Spider-Man Noir in the series after he previously voiced a version of the character in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Cage was in talks for the role by February 2024, and was confirmed to star by May as Ben Reilly / The Spider. In July 2024, several actors were cast in the series, including Lamorne Morris as Robbie Robertson, Brendan Gleeson as Silvermane, Li Jun Li as Cat Hardy, and Abraham Popoola. Gleeson's casting was confirmed in September, when Jack Huston and Karen Rodriguez joined the cast as series regulars as Flint Marko / Sandman and Janet, respectively. Also that month, Lukas Haas, Cameron Britton, Cary Christopher, Michael Kostroff, Scott MacArthur, Joe Massingill, Whitney Rice, and Amanda Schull were all cast in undisclosed recurring roles. Andrew Lewis Caldwell was cast to recur in the series in November, followed by Amy Aquino and Andrew Robinson joining in February 2025, and the next month, Kai Caster had joined for a guest role, which was said to be connected to another character in the series.

Design

Trayce Field served as the costume designer, after previously designing the Prowler super suit worn by Donald Glover for a live-action sequence in the animated film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), while Warren Alan Young was the production designer, after working on the Marvel Television series Runaways (2017–2019).

Filming

Principal photography had begun by August 2024 in Los Angeles, using the working title Old Fashioned, with Darran Tiernan serving as the cinematographer. Gleeson had begun filming some of his scenes by the start of October. Filming was temporarily suspended due to the January 2025 Southern California wildfires, and it was initially scheduled to last until February 2025; filming had concluded by mid-March. The production used black-and-white cameras and filters during filming to capture the authentic style of early 1930s noir films, such as featuring long shadows.

Post-production

Tirsa Hackshaw, Eric Kissack, and Jennifer Barbot serve as the series' editors; Hacksaw previously worked with Lightfoot on The Punisher.

The series was created for release in both black-and-white and color. To achieve the two versions, on-set footage was captured digitally to then be split and processed separately. The team coined the term "True-Hue" to refer to how they went about creating their Technicolor-like color version, with Cage saying that version was made to look "super saturated" and Uziel noting it was as if the black and white film had been colorized. Cage likened the style of the color version to the painting Nighthawks (1942) by Edward Hopper. Anthony Breznican at Esquire felt each version resulted in different vibes for the series, "with the color version veering more toward the lighthearted comic-strip crime capers of Dick Tracy, while the black and white conjures the sinister moral abyss of the novels of Raymond Chandler".

Music

Kris Bowers and Michael Dean Parsons were revealed in February 2026 to be composing the series' score. On May 7, 2026, the series' lead single "Saving Grace", written by Oak Felder and Sebastian Kole and performed by Kirby, was released from Milan Records. A soundtrack album, including Bowers and Parsons's score, was released on May 27, 2026.

Marketing

During Amazon's upfronts presentation in May 2025, a promotional first-look picture of Cage in costume as Spider-Man Noir was unveiled. Jordan Moreau of Variety described the costume as "iconic" and stylistically similar to the version worn by the character in the animated Spider-Verse films. Rosy Cordero at Deadline Hollywood described the teaser as "moody". The first trailer was released on February 12, 2026, in both black-and-white and color. It featured the tagline "With no power, comes no responsibility", a "cheeky riff" on the phrase "With great power comes great responsibility" associated with Spider-Man. In late April 2026, Marvel Comics announced a tie-in comic book, Spider-Noir #1, in collaboration with Sony Pictures Television and Amazon MGM Studios that would serve as a prelude to the series. It was written by Marc Guggenheim from a story by Jay Martin, with art by Stefano Raffaele, and cover art by Mike Hawthorne. The comic was available at various Spider-Noir-related activations and events leading up to the series' premiere, such as CCXP Mexico, and released in black-and-white and color versions like the series, with the colored version being colored by Larry Molinar. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema created a curated four-week film series called "Web of Shadows: Films That Inspired Spider-Noir", featuring the noir films In a Lonely Place (1950), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), The Third Man (1949), and Kiss Me Deadly (1955). Additionally, the first two episodes were screened at select Alamo Drafthouse theaters on May 25, with stars Morris and Huston participating in a post-screening Q&A session at Alamo Drafthouse's Los Angeles location.

Release

Spider-Noir was released in its entirety in the United States on MGM+ on May 25, 2026. The series consists of eight episodes, and was released globally, including in the United States, on May 27 on Prime Video. Spider-Noir was released in both a black-and-white and a fully colored version, marketed as "Authentic Black & White" and "True-Hue Full Color", respectively. Cage hoped the dual release would inspire audiences to become interested in early black and white noir films to gain an appreciation of them as an art form. The series had its world premiere at the Regal Times Square in New York City, on May 13, 2026.

Reception

Viewership

Nielsen Media Research, which records streaming viewership on certain U.S. television screens, reported that Spider-Noir generated 851 million minutes viewed during the week of May 25–31, ranking as the second most-streamed original series of the week. The following week, from June 1–7, the series accumulated 739 million minutes of watch time, placing fourth among original series. Between June 8–14, Spider-Noir generated an additional 410 million minutes viewed, ranking as the eighth most-streamed original series for the week.

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 92% of 111 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Nicolas Cage delivers a gloriously pulpy performance that makes every quip and thwip crackle in Spider-Noir—a dazzling, stylish blend of hard-boiled storytelling and pure comic book verve." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 72 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.