Nicolas Cage has carved out a quirky niche for himself in recent years with such films as Color Out of Space (2019), Pig (2021), The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022), Dream Scenario (2023), and Longlegs (2024), among others. Now he’s starring in Spider-Noir, a new live-action series based on the Marvel Comics character. Cage plays an aging private investigator and disillusioned superhero in 1930s New York. Prime Video released the first teaser in two forms: one in black and white—very Raymond Chandler-esque—and another in color, which the showrunners are calling “True Hue.”
Marvel Comics created its “noir” line in 2009, reinterpreting familiar Marvel characters in an alternate universe, usually set during the Great Depression in the US. A version of the Spider-Noir character, voiced by Cage, briefly appeared in the animated masterpieces, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and Across the Spider-Verse (2023). (He is set to reprise that role in the upcoming Beyond the Spider-Verse.)
Co-showrunner (with Steve Lightfoot) Oren Uziel is a film noir fan, so that Marvel series naturally appealed to him. The live-action series is still set in 1930s New York, but the spidery superhero is not Peter Parker. (Uziel thought the Parker character was too associated with a boyish high school type, which didn’t really fit the noir vibe.) So Cage is playing Ben Reilly, a hard-boiled PI with a secret superhero identity, The Spider. Cage has described his portrayal as “70 percent Humphrey Bogart [specifically The Big Sleep] and 30 percent Bugs Bunny,” which seems pretty on point for Cage’s distinctively flamboyant style.
The footage was shot digitally and processed separately to create the black-and-white and color versions. The team coined the term “True Hue” for the latter, since the intent was to create something that looked supersaturated, like classic Technicolor. (Cage compared the feel to the 1944 Edward Hopper painting Nighthawks.) Per the official premise: “Spider-Noir tells the story of Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage), a seasoned, down on his luck private investigator in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life, following a deeply personal tragedy, as the city’s one and only superhero.”
In addition to Cage’s Ben Reilly/The Spider, the cast includes Lamorne Morris as Reilly’s friend Robbie Robertson, a freelance journalist who clings to optimism in the face of his buddy’s cynicism; Li Jun Li as nightclub singer Cat Hardy, the classic underworld femme fatale (Li based her portrayal on Anna May Wong, Rita Hayworth, and Lauren Bacall); Karen Rodriguez as Reilly’s secretary, Janet; Abraham Popoola as a World War I veteran; Jack Huston as a bodyguard named Flint Marko; Brendan Gleeson as New York mob boss Silvermane, who is being targeted for assassination; Lukas Haas as one of Silvermane’s subordinates; Richard Robichaux as the editor of the Daily Bugle; and Kai Caster.
Frankly, we’re digging the black and white, but here’s the True Hue color version of the teaser for good measure:
Spider-Noir premieres on May 25, 2026, on MGM+, with all episodes becoming available on Prime Video on May 27, 2026. Viewers can choose to watch in black and white or True Hue.
