While Spider-Noir received positive reviews and several Emmy Award nominations, Prime Video still cancelled the show after its first season. That was said to be a result of low viewership and a sizeable budget, with the casting of actor Nicolas Cage no doubt contributing to the latter.
The timing of the axe being dropped was strange on Amazon's part, though, as it fell just two days before Spider-Noir won five awards at the 78th Primetime Creative Arts Emmys. Still, all the awards success in the world doesn't matter if people aren't tuning in, and the series ultimately didn't manage to break into the main Emmy categories.
Cage doesn't have any hard feelings about Spider-Noir's conclusion (he previously said that "one season is perfect"), and Amazon has already moved on to a Clone Saga TV series revolving around Peter Parker's clones, Ben Reilly and Kaine Parker.
In a new interview, Cage has revealed why he's happy with the cancellation and explained why he thinks Spider-Noir is best treated as a one-and-done.
"I meant it when I said what I said," Cage reaffirms in the video below. "It’s a perfect season. You never wanna get stuck repeating a character and wear out your welcome. Ben Reilly is so idiosyncratic. I was doing something that was pretty high-risk, tightrope stuff — if you do that for Season 2, Season 3, you could really wear out your welcome."
"So when they didn’t pick it up, I was like, 'Whew, thank you!' Because now I’m doing True Detective, and that’s only one season. It’s better that way, you know?" he continued. "I didn’t wanna keep repeating it. I don’t like repeating myself. It’s perfect, and I love that character. I love that season, and it will always be there and always be fresh."
Spider-Noir took some major liberties with the comics, meaning it failed to strike a chord with many fans. Still, they'll get to see a more comic-accurate take on the hard-boiled hero in next year's Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse when Cage returns as the animated version of the Peter Parker Variant.
Spider-Noir is a live-action series based on the Marvel comic Spider-Man Noir. It 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.
All episodes of Spider-Noir are now streaming on Prime Video.