Nicolas Cage Goes Full Nicolas Cage in ‘Spider-Noir’

By Elliot Nash - News

Published: 13 Feb 2026

Readtime: 4 min

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There are few things more reliable in cinema than Nicolas Cage with a trench coat, a fedora and permission to be strange. So when a teaser drops for Spider-Noir and it’s Cage brooding through 1930s New York in full pulp-detective mode, you don’t really need convincing. You just press play and let him go.

The new teaser for Spider-Noir landed today, confirming the live-action series will arrive on 27 May, with Cage stepping into the role of Ben Reilly, a burnt-out private investigator forced to reckon with a former life as the city’s only masked hero. Yes, it’s Marvel. Yes, it’s Spider-Man adjacent. But this leans far more toward a Chandler novel left in the rain than a spandex spectacle.

But let’s be honest. We’re not here for the lore. We’re here to watch Nicolas Cage chew through hardboiled monologues like they owe him money.

The black-and-white teaser opens with all the right notes: cigarette smoke, lonely street lamps, a city that feels like it’s hiding something. Cage leans into it properly. Gravel voice. World-weary stare. The kind of delivery that suggests every line was written on a typewriter in a room with bad lighting.

If you liked his voice work in Into the Spider-Verse, this is that energy, but dialled up and let loose in live action.

But what it isn’t is another Peter Parker story.

In this version, Cage plays Ben Reilly, a clone character from the comics, operating under the name “The Spider” rather than Spider-Man. This isn’t a coming-of-age story. It’s more mid-life crisis in a fedora.

Cage, as expected, isn’t pulling any punches, describing his performance as “70 per cent Humphrey Bogart, 30 per cent Bugs Bunny.” And if you remember his unhinged turn in Vampire’s Kiss, you’ll know he’s more than comfortable swinging from one extreme to the other. He’s also said he approached the role like a spider trying to cosplay as a human. Which, honestly, is exactly why you cast the bloke behind The Wicker Man and Bad Lieutenant.

Spider noir posters 3 — Ben Reilly’s office door, presented in both monochrome and colour to highlight the dual-format release. | Image: Prime Video

But for all you cinema aficionados, here’s the genuinely interesting bit.

Spider-Noir was filmed simultaneously for release in two versions: authentic black and white, and something the team calls “True-Hue” full colour.

Everything was captured digitally on set, then split and processed separately. The colour version isn’t just a filter. According to the creative team, it was designed to feel “super saturated”, almost like a Technicolor dream layered over a pulp paperback. Cage himself compared it to Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, that lonely diner painting everyone’s seen a hundred times but still can’t quite look away from.

Edward hopper - nighthawk — Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks (1942) | Image: The Art Institute of Chicago

Early reactions suggest the split changes the tone more than you’d expect. The colour version reportedly leans closer to the comic-strip crime energy of Dick Tracy, while the black-and-white cut sinks into full moral rot, closer to Raymond Chandler at his bleakest.

Most superhero films pick a look and stick with it. Spider-Noir is giving you two. Pulp fantasy in colour. Straight noir dread in monochrome. That tracks when you look at who’s behind it.

The series was developed by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Amy Pascal, the team behind Into the Spider-Verse. They’ve already shown they’re willing to mess with style if it makes the story stronger. That film didn’t look like everything else on the release calendar. Neither does this.

Harry Bradbeer directs the first two episodes, with Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot as co-showrunners.