We recently learned that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse star Nicolas Cage will reprise his role in Noir, a Prime Video series telling the story of an ageing and down-on-his-luck private investigator in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life as the city's only superhero.
Now, Cage has broken his silence on the project in a recent interview with The New Yorker after being asked about his Hollywood influences.
"Well, I mean, the fantasy would be that I could try to aspire to be something more Golden Age," he started. "You know, something more like James Cagney or Humphrey Bogart. Or Hedy Lamarr or Bette Davis. I wanted to have that kind of aura, you know, like the more enigmatic, you don’t know too much."
"We’ll see what happens if I do this Amazon show [“Spider-Man Noir”], and they put me in black-and-white. We’ll see if we can get some of that flavor."
Asked about his first proper foray into television, Cage added, "I saw Bryan Cranston in 'Breaking Bad' stare at a suitcase for half the episode. I thought, 'We don’t have time to do that in movies.' So that to me seemed like an opportunity to open it up a little. I don’t know if the project [Noir] that I’m exploring has room for that. I think this is a much more sort of popcorn-entertainment episodic."
He'd go on to say that the live-action Spider-Man TV series consists of "eight episodes" and described it as "more of a Pop-art mashup, like a Lichtenstein painting" with "some sparkle to it."
However, despite playing this unique Spidey Variant, Cage was quick to make it clear, "I don’t like violence." He then explained, "I don’t want to play people who are hurting people. One of the things that I like about this potential show is that it’s fantasy. It’s not really people beating people up. Monsters are involved."
The mention of monsters lines up with what we've heard from various scoopers about the series and it sounds like Cage is bracing himself to see some action as the web-slinger because he confirmed, "I have to slip out after this to go get a scan done for the show, and then also for the movie I’m doing after the show. Two scans in one day!"
Given Sony's apparent inability to make a good live-action Marvel movie without Kevin Feige's assistance, it's going to be interesting to see how Noir comes together. Oren Uziel (Mortal Kombat) and Steve Lightfoot (The Punisher) are co-showrunners and developed the series with Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Amy Pascal, who will executive produce the series.
Noir doesn't currently have a confirmed premiere date.