Entertainment
Nic Cage's Spider-Noir Trailer Just Blew The MCU Out Of The Water
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Confession time: when I heard that Nicolas Cage would be acting in a live-action Spider-Noir TV show, I thought it was the worst idea I had heard in a good, long time. Sure, Cage had done an excellent job voicing this Spider-Man variant in Into the Spider-Verse, but I always thought his casting was a bit of cheeky meta-humor. The idea of putting the 62-year-old actor in spandex and actually having him fight crime on a prestige TV show? Now, that seemed laughable in the worst kinds of ways.
Now, the trailer for this show (premiering on Prime Video on May 27th) has me eating a few healthy heaps of humble pie. It seems like Spider-Noir is going to find that elusive balance between being a superhero show and being (what else?) a noirish detective show. Similarly, it found just the right amount of humor, all while leaning into Cage’s quirkiest strengths as an actor. If the actual show can deliver the goods, then Spider-Noir is shaping up to be the rare Sony production with the potential to blow the MCU out of the water.
Letting Cage Be Cage
To my surprise and relief, one of the first things the Spider-Noir trailer does is address the fact that Nicolas Cage is seemingly too old to play a high-flying superhero. Instead of being a plucky hero suiting up for the first time, Cage plays a character who has happily hung up his spandex, leaving his wall-crawling days behind him. Now, though, with his city going to hell thanks to a Kingpin-like criminal (played by Silvio Manfredi), he returns to having two lives: private eye by day and spectacular superhero by night.
If the trailer is any indication, Spider-Noir also leans into Cage’s larger-than-life screen presence as one of Hollywood’s weirdest actors. He gruffs his way through some appropriately noirish lines (including an ironic “Because with no power, there’s no responsibility), but there’s also some of Cage’s wonderfully weird humor. When asked if he’s “going to be a dick about” starting his life anew, the actor replies, “Uh yes, actually, a private dick, to be exact!” It’s such a delightfully strange delivery of such a basic line, which gives me hope that Cage will be able to elevate the source whenever the writing is lacking.
The Anti-MCU Is Here
Based on the trailer, the writing for the show is solid and shows a remarkable amount of restraint. I feared that producers would try to jam Spider-Noir with Spider-Verse levels of chaos or otherwise try to one-up the MCU with multiversal superhero shenanigans. But the trailer makes it seem like the show will mostly be a grounded, noir-style story, one in which special powers are treated like something more than a bit frightening. That’s kind of an exciting prospect, really: a low-tech fictional universe where superpowers are treated with horror instead of reverence? It’s basically the anti-MCU, and I’m here for it.
Overall, the trailer did a gangbusters job of making a show I had no interest in seem like appointment television. I still have a few doubts about the show. For example, I think it’s super-cowardly to provide audiences with both color and black-and-white viewing options (if you wanna go noir, guys, then go freakin’ noir!). But this trailer presents a superhero show that is drenched in style, one that has found the perfect balance between humor, world-building, and even horror. Will it stick the landing, or will this show have its own long goodbye in the ratings? Fans and haters can find out together when Spider-Noir comes out on Prime Video on May 27th.