Amazon Cancels Spider-Noir After Only One Season
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
For a while now, the “Spider-Verse” has been where you go for a more light-hearted take on your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, be that in animated form in Sony’s flagship movies or in the ill-fated tertiary movies like Madame Web or Kraven the Hunter. But earlier this year, the Spider-Verse was given a new hero with Spider-Noir, an original noir story starring Nicolas Cage as Ben Reilly, a detective with a familiar alter ego.
It seemed to be a sure thing for Prime Video — a familiar superhero IP, a release both in black and white and in color, Nicolas Cage’s first-ever leading TV role, and a solid 90 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from both critics and audience. But all the same, the show has been canceled after only one season. Is that a mistake? The recent Creative Arts Emmy Awards seem to prove so.
Nicolas Cage supported the decision to not move forward with Spider-Noir Season 2.
Deadline reported earlier this month that Amazon Prime Video chose to pass on a second season of Spider-Noir. Nicolas Cage seemed to support the decision. “For me, one season is perfect, having said what I wanted to say with this dangerous, innovative, pop-art Spider-Man. Onwards, upwards, inwards,” he said in a statement acquired by TheWrap.
However, only a few days later, Hollywood seemed to prove there was an appetite for more of Ben Reilly. At the Creative Arts Emmys, the ceremony held the week before the main awards show for below-the-line categories, Spider-Noir took home five trophies, including awards for cinematography, title design, sound editing, special effects, and stunt co-ordination. Even without those wins, the massive 11 nominations are an achievement just by themselves.
Spider-Noir gained multiple accolades at the Creative Arts Emmys just days after its cancellation.
Just because this is the end of the line for this version of Spider-Man, it doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the franchise at Prime Video. In the same Deadline report that revealed the cancellation, it was noted that multiple other projects were still in development through the partnership between Prime Video and Sony, and one is “said to be nearing a series order.” So far, the first announced show in this partnership, Silk, was scrapped before production, and now Spider-Noir has been canceled after one season. If this pattern continues, maybe this mysterious unannounced show can be the one to go the distance.
Perhaps Cage is right. This is how Spider-Noir is meant to exist, as a fleeting experiment on the true flexibility of the Spider-Man persona. But if this partnership is going to be a facet in the vast web of Spider-Man stories, it needs to at least have a show breakthrough that “one-season wonder” barrier.
