Prime Video's upcoming Spider-Noir TV series tells the story of Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage), 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.
The series premieres this Spring, and several new stills—in both colour and black-and-white, which is also how the series itself will be available to watch—have been revealed by Esquire. While Marvel fans are understandably sceptical about anything from Sony that isn't made hand-in-hand with Marvel Studios, Spider-Noir certainly looks pretty amazing.
These images put the spotlight on "The Spider" (it's now been confirmed that he won't be referred to as Spider-Man in the show), along with Ben Reilly, Karen Rodriguez as Janet, Lamorne Morris as Robbie Robertson, and Li Jun Li as Cat Hardy.
"I first met on this project with Oren [Uziel] a couple years ago at a place called Bottega Louie in downtown L.A. I was explaining what I had hoped, what my dream with this concept would be," Cage, who voiced Spider-Man Noir in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, explained.
"We could take a 1930s film-noir style—meaning that manner of speaking, the Howard Hawks quick dialogue—and mash it into another icon in the Marvel realm, which would be the spider element," he continued. "It would be like a Roy Lichtenstein collision of art appreciation. Oren loved the idea. But it wasn't something that we knew right off the bat necessarily would work for both of us."
"It wasn't until we went to the first read-through that I could tell the powers that be were very intrigued by it. It really wasn't 100 percent clear to me until I saw the eight episodes. I think we got there, as challenging as it felt at the time," Cage added.
Elaborating on his other influences, the actor revealed, "I did look at Cagney, and I looked at Edward G. Robinson. But when you watch Bogart and you watch everybody around him, he almost seems like a cartoon character. The same thing happens here. But it's brilliant and you can't take your eyes off the guy. It's what makes him so compelling and charismatic. It almost seemed larger than life."
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.