We’ll give Prime Video’s upcoming superhero series Spider-Noirthis: It doesn’t seem to be backing away from the weirdness inherent to “a 1930s noir show where Nic Cage plays a live-action version of a character he originally played as a cartoon, who may or may not have spider powers.” At least, not if the show’s first trailers, in both black and white and “True-Hue Full Color,” are anything to go off of:
Based on the original Spider-Man: Noir comics from 2009—and, more specifically, on Cage’s deliberately over-the-top performance as the character in 2018’s Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse—the series focuses on the Oscar winner as Ben Reilly, a private eye who seems to spend most of his time beating people up, getting drunk, and mumbling about his ongoing existential crisis. He’s accompanied in these noble endeavors by folks like Lamorne Morris, Karen Rodriguez, Abraham Popoola, Jack Huston, Brendan Gleeson, and Li Jun Li—who might want to watch out, given that one of the trailer’s quick-cut sequences seems to show her getting the show’s version of the ol’ Gwen Stacy treatment. (We’re also pretty sure we caught a glimpse of a bad guy who must almost certainly be classic Spidey foe Electro, although this thing zooms by a little too fast for us to be sure.)
(While we’re in “Just asking questions” mode, meanwhile, the trailer also raises one major query for us: The tagline asserts that “With no powers comes no responsibility”—and then shows Reilly apparently web-slinging through New York in its closing moments. The original comics version of the character can fire webs—organically, in case you’re curious—but the trailer here puts such a low emphasis on the “spider” side of the equation that it comes as a surprise.)
Today’s trailer release for the series also leans into one of the show’s more interesting gimmicks: The decision to present it in both black-and-white, and via a colorization process that producers refer to as “True-Hue.” The series debuts on Prime Video on May 27.
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