Spider-Noir Canceled After One Season at Prime Video

Prime Video has officially pulled the plug on Spider-Noir, canceling the Nicolas Cage-led Marvel series after just one season. The eight-episode series debuted in May, meaning Cage’s live-action adventures as Ben Reilly have come to a much quicker end than many fans probably expected.

And here’s the part that makes the cancellation particularly surprising: Spider-Noir earned 11 Emmy nominations this year, the most of any Prime Video series. Yes, you read that correctly. Eleven nominations and still canceled. Friend, what exactly does a television show have to do around here?

Cage starred as Ben Reilly, an aging private investigator and Spider-Man variant navigating 1930s New York. The role marked Cage’s first regular television series role while also bringing him back into the Spider-Verse after previously voicing Spider-Man Noir in the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

The series also featured an impressive ensemble that included Lamorne Morris, Li Jun Li, Karen Rodriguez, Abraham Popoola, Jack Huston and Brendan Gleeson, with Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot serving as co-showrunners.

One of the more interesting creative decisions surrounding Spider-Noir was giving viewers the option to watch the series in either color or black-and-white. It could have easily felt like a streaming gimmick, but the monochrome presentation fit the show’s hard-boiled detective aesthetic and helped distinguish it visually from the seemingly endless number of superhero shows we’ve gotten over the years.

Unfortunately, being different and apparently being nominated for a bunch of Emmys wasn’t enough to secure another season. There may still be life for Sony’s Marvel characters on television. Spider-Noir came out of Sony Pictures Television and Amazon MGM Studios’ partnership to develop television projects based on Sony’s collection of Marvel characters, and another project connected to that partnership is reportedly in development.

Still, losing Spider-Noir after only eight episodes feels like a missed opportunity. Nicolas Cage playing a grizzled 1930s detective version of Spider-Man was exactly the kind of wonderfully strange idea superhero television could use more of, particularly at a time when audiences have seen practically every version of the genre imaginable.

Instead, the case is officially closed.

All eight episodes of Spider-Noir remain available to stream on Prime Video.