What To Know
- Spider-Noir breaks from traditional superhero origin stories by introducing Ben Reilly as a middle-aged hero grappling with personal loss.
- Showrunner Oren Uziel specifically aged up the character to explore the psychological toll of a long life as a hero.
- Nicolas Cage’s unique noir gravitas and creative input deeply influenced the character.
Unlike most superhero stories, Prime Video’s Spider-Noir doesn’t begin to weave its tale with a traditional origin story. Instead, audiences are dropped smack dab into the middle of Ben Reilly’s (Nicolas Cage) midlife crisis, long after the thrill of masks and heroics has faded. Haunted by his failure to save his main squeeze Ruby, Ben is attempting to redefine himself.
TV Insider spoke to showrunner Oren Uziel about the “resetting” and why starting with a worn-down, slightly-busted Ben Reilly was the right way to unlock the character.
“When I first came on, the first thing I asked is if I could age him up,” said Uziel. “Because it’s just … it’s a story that I [would] be more comfortable telling, that I’m more familiar with. I’m not a high school kid anymore,” said Uziel. “I really thought, let’s see what happens to this character if we jump forward in time and see just what he’s been through and how it’s changed him, and how living a long life as The Spider might affect that character.”
“And then that also allowed us to cast Nic Cage,” explained Uziel. “And then, together with Nic, I think we just created something that I think no one’s ever seen before, and that felt really satisfying.”
And with Cage’s arrival, the series inherited a wealth of cinematic weight, as the actor brought a level of gravitas few performers could match. According to Uziel, Cage’s presence and instincts helped shape some of the show’s boldest creative decisions.
“One-thousand percent, and it’s something I wouldn’t have done myself without him,” said Uziel. “I mean, we started talking, and he was really pressing to figure out what it felt like, and what really happened to him when he became a spider. And we really pushed and pushed and got to a place where this guy is really more spider than man at this point. And he’s almost cosplaying as a human. It’s hard work for him to walk around in this human form. I think that’s just such a wholly Nick Cage idea, and something that he knows he can do with his physicality. He’s really an incredible actor. I’m not breaking news there, but it was just amazing to work with him.”
That collaborative push toward making Ben Reilly feel genuinely unsettling ultimately shaped some of the show’s most memorable moments, including one scene Uziel says perfectly captures Cage’s intensity of the character.
“There’s a scene that we talked about that I know we both love, where at some point he’s talking to someone in the show. He’s talking about how the spider is in him at all times, and he manages to suppress that feeling, and then he sort of looks and he says, ‘Most of the time,’ and he says it in a very menacing way,” recalled Uziel. “And he really was so happy that I was cool with him doing that. And I remember when he did that take. And then he came over, we sat at the monitor together, and he was like, ‘We’re making something really cool, Oren.’ It was really, really fun and meaningful to me.”
Spider-Noir, First episode streaming now on MGM+; 8-episode drop on May 27 on Prime Video, available in both “Authentic Black & White” and “True Hue” color