Spider-Noir
Entry updated 3 August 2026. Tagged: Film.
US tv series (2026). Pascal Pictures, Lord Miller Productions, Bohemian Risk Productions, Oren, Amazon MGM Studios, Sony Television. Created by Oren Uziel, based on the Marvel Comics. Various writers and directors. Cast includes Nicolas Cage, Andrew Lewis Caldwell, Brendan Gleeson, Jack Huston, Li Jun Li, Lamorne Morris, Abraham Popoola and Karen Rodriguez. 8 episodes of 42-49 minutes. Available to watch in either black and white or colour.
In an alternate 1930s New York, Ben Reilly (Cage) was once the crime-fighting Superhero The Spider, but stopped after failing to save his fiancée from drowning. Now he works as a down-at-heel private investigator, aided by loyal secretary and sidekick Janet Ruiz (Rodriguez) and journalist Robbie Robertson (Morris). In the Spider's absence, crime lord Finn "Silvermane" Byrne (Gleeson) has virtually taken over the city, having the police and mayor in his pay. On Silvermane's team are two other Superpowered characters, the immensely strong Tombstone (Popoola) and Flint Marko (Huston), who can turn himself into sand. The plot revolves around Reilly's attempt to save nightclub singer Cat Hardy (Li), whom he loves but who is in turn in love with Marko, from the clutches of Silvermane, while also wrestling with his conscience and investigating the origins of the superpowers, which trace back to wartime experiments by the Germans but which may be reversible.
Spider-Noir is the first Television series to come out of Sony's Spider-Man Universe franchise, which, separate from the Marvel Cinematic Universe itself, has also generated the Venom series of films, Morbius (2022), Madame Web (2024) and Kraven the Hunter (2024). Unlike those films, which have seemed to rather desperately ride the coat-tails of the over-stuffed superhero cinema genre, Spider-Noir offers a more distinctive addition to the Spider-Man canon, centred on a character and universe briefly introduced in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018). It is remarkably faithful throughout to the model of the 1930s and '40s films noir that were its inspiration, something particularly evident if watching the monochrome version. In fact, the Spider guise of Reilly's character has only a small role in the proceedings, which focus on more traditional gumshoe territory. While heavily reliant on the very considerable charisma of Cage and Gleeson, there are also memorable characters throughout the cast, much humour, and a refreshing depiction of an out-of-shape superhero who comes out of retirement and suffers constant aches and pains when drawn into fights as a result.
Further series are expected. [CWa]
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