Thanks to Esquire, we have some major new Spider-Noir details ahead of the show's Prime Video launch this spring. As we mentioned a little earlier today, this version of the character doesn't go by "Spider-Man." Instead, he's "The Spider," a nod to heroes from this era like The Spirit and The Shadow.
That's far from the end of the world, but many fans have questioned the decision to rename the Peter Parker Variant as Ben Reilly. In the comics, he's Peter's clone and adopts that moniker as a mix of Uncle Ben and May Parker's maiden name.
While this likely has something to do with Sony's deal with Marvel Studios to share the web-slinger, co-showrunner Oren Uziel tells the site, "Peter Parker feels very synonymous with a high school kid. Boyish. On his way up. Ben Reilly has already gone through the entire arc and has seen it all."
"He’s over it, and trying to move past it. But his past kind of keeps coming back to haunt him. It's just a different version that we haven't seen before."
Executive producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller also addressed the change, with the latter saying, "This character's very different from the Peter Parker from the movies. He's older and jaded, and not afraid to punch a guy in the face drunkenly." Lord noted, "He already had his Chinatown disillusionment moment that happened years and years ago."
"I have to be coy about the reasons, because you'll find out," he continued, before Miller added, "The reason he's named Ben Riley is explained. We’ll leave it at that."
So, that's going to remain a mystery for now, but we do have a few other big reveals to keep us going. For starters, Brendan Gleeson is playing the mobster known as Silvermane, who, in this series, has been the target of multiple assassination attempts.
According to the site, Reilly investigates the mobster and learns that the arsonist suspected of setting fire to Silverman's mansion can create fire in his hands (Spider-Noir's take on Molten Man, perhaps). It's then that he runs afoul of Flint Marko, a.k.a. Sandman. He'll be played by Boardwalk Empire star Jack Huston.
"In all the great detective stories, you have two cases that sort of come together, and you realise you're actually working the same thing," Uziel teased. "He’s a guy getting dragged into a much larger fight that he doesn't really want to be a part of. Silvermane is the big bad, but what's happening to Silvermane connects back to Ben's past and gets him spiralling deeper and deeper into his own origins."
Lamorne Morris (New Girl) is Robbie Robertson, a freelance journalist and Ben's ally. Janet, meanwhile, is played by Karen Rodriguez (The Hunting Wives) and serves as the private eye's trusted secretary.
Finally, we have Li Jun Li's Cat Hardy, nightclub chanteuse who lures Reilly into the underworld conspiracy at the heart of the series. She is indeed a new take on the Black Cat, a.k.a. Felicia Hardy (you can get a first look at the character here).
"Really, she’s Rita Hayworth, who was so great in Gilda and Lady from Shanghai, and then a little bit of Lauren Bacall, because Bogey and Bacall go so well together," Uziel explained. "There's some Kim Basinger from L.A. Confidential, in terms of how she fits into everything. She's an amalgam of a lot of different things."
Marvel fans have spent a long time waiting for Black Cat's live-action debut, but whether we'll see Cat suit up is a mystery. The name change, however, surely opens the door to Marvel Studios still doing something with a comic-accurate version of the cat burglar in Tom Holland's Spider-Man franchise.
Oren Uziel (Mortal Kombat) and Steve Lightfoot (The Punisher) are co-showrunners on Spider-Noir. Harry Bradbeer is set to direct and executive-produce the first two episodes of the series.
Nicolas Cage will be joined in Spider-Noir by Lamorne Morris (New Girl), Brendan Gleeson (The Banshees of Inisherin), Abraham Popoola (Atlas, The Rig), Li Jun Li (Babylon, Sex/Life) and Jack Huston (Boardwalk Empire, Ben-Hur).
Lukas Haas (Inception), Cameron Britton (Mindhunters), Cary Christopher (Days of Our Lives,), Michael Kostroff (Wizard of Lies), Scott MacArthur (El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie), Joe Massingill (Barry), Whitney Rice (Suits), Amanda Schull (12 Monkeys), Andrew Caldwell (iZombie), Amy Aquino (Bosch) Andrew Robinson, (Hellraiser), Kai Caster (Yellowstone), and Karen Rodriguez (Swarm) round out the supporting cast.
Spider-Noir will premiere on the MGM+ linear channel in the U.S. and globally on Prime Video.