Looking to crack the case of why Nicolas Cage swung at the chance to headline the Prime Video series Spider-Noir? Turns out the solution is elementary — in fact, it’s right there in the title. “I mean, it’s Spider-Noir,” the Oscar-winning Leaving Las Vegas star says in a new behind the scenes featurette that Gold Derby is exclusively premiering today. “Well, hell yes! Of course I’m going to do that — who wouldn’t do that?” (Watch the featurette above.)
Of course, Cage also came into the role with some web-slinging experience, albeit in animated form, having voiced a noir-ish version of Spider-Man in the wildly popular Spider-Verse franchise. But as Spider-Noir creator and showrunner Oren Uziel recently told Gold Derby, that prior history didn’t automatically nab him the plum role of Ben Reilly, a retired superhero barely earning a living as a private eye in ’30s-era New York.
“In the comics, he’s a younger character,” Uziel says of the Marvel Comics title that inspired the series. “So it wasn’t a given that he’d be older in the show.” But Uziel also didn’t have to work too hard to convince Spider-Noir executive producers Amy Pascal, Phil Lord, and Chris Miller — who also oversee the Spider-Verse movies — to age the character up. “I related to a character that feels like they were powerful in the past, and has a few chips on their shoulder,” he says. “That felt so much more rich and fun to me — and it also gave me the opportunity to cast Nic Cage!”
The two-minute featurette showcases Cage in action on the Spider-Noir set doing whatever a spider can. The producers worked hard to keep the show’s set-pieces both grounded and practical to the era, which the actor appreciated. “This is a Spider-Man that’s fresh, gutsy, new,” Cage raves in the featurette. Can we get another hell yes?
