Nicolas Cage’s stint as the Spider-Man Noir variant Ben Reilly has come to an end. Prime Video has cancelled Spider-Noir after its first season, despite the Marvel series earning strong reviews and 11 Emmy nominations, the highest tally for any Prime Video series this year.
The decision comes after a relatively encouraging start for the series, which premiered on MGM+ on May 25 before arriving globally on Prime Video. Nielsen data shows that Spider-Noir accumulated 2.6 billion viewing minutes in the US during its first six weeks. However, its audience momentum reportedly failed to match the performance of some of Prime Video’s bigger recent titles, including Reacher and Off Campus.
The series also carried a substantial production cost, with the makers creating both colour and black-and-white versions of the show. Despite a 92 per cent critics’ score and 90 per cent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, the numbers were apparently not enough to justify another season.
Interestingly, the cancellation does not bring Amazon and Sony Pictures Television’s collaboration on Sony’s Marvel properties to a halt. The companies continue to develop multiple series under their multi-title agreement, with one project reportedly approaching a series order. Its details are currently being kept under wraps. The previously planned Silk: Spider Society, meanwhile, was scrapped before making it to screens.
Based on Marvel’s Spider-Man Noir comics, the live-action series followed Reilly, a struggling private investigator in 1930s New York who is forced to confront his former life as the city’s lone superhero after a personal tragedy. Cage led the cast, which also featured Lamorne Morris, Li Jun Li, Karen Rodriguez, Abraham Popoola, Jack Huston and Brendan Gleeson.
Created by Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot, Spider-Noir was executive produced by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse collaborators Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Amy Pascal, among others. Harry Bradbeer directed the opening two episodes.
