Nicolas Cage's Spider-Noir cancelled after one season despite leading Prime Video with 11 Emmy nominations

[Patrick93]

Nicolas Cage's Spider-Noir remains one of the more baffling cancellation decisions still being discussed this month, with Prime Video pulling the plug after just one eight episode season despite the series earning 11 Emmy nominations, the most of any Prime Video show this year, and posting a 92 percent critics score alongside a 90 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. The show marked Cage's first regular television role, casting him as Ben Reilly, a down on his luck 1930s New York private investigator forced to grapple with a personal tragedy while serving as the city's only superhero.

The series was genuinely ambitious from a production standpoint too, filming all eight episodes in both full colour and black and white versions, a first for any Marvel television project, and giving viewers the choice of which version to actually watch. According to Nielsen's streaming content ratings, the show pulled in 2.6 billion viewing minutes across its first six weeks, numbers that would normally suggest a healthy audience rather than a series on the chopping block.

Production costs from that dual colour and black and white filming approach have been cited as a likely factor in the cancellation decision, and reports suggest the show simply did not perform as strongly relative to some of Prime Video's other big titles like Reacher when internal viewership comparisons were made. The cancellation was announced just days before the Creative Arts Emmys, where Spider-Noir went on to actually win five awards across its technical nomination categories, making the timing of the decision look even more jarring in hindsight.

Cage himself responded with a fairly graceful public statement, saying one season felt perfect for what he wanted to say with this dangerous, innovative, pop art take on Spider-Man, and signing off with onwards, upwards, inwards. Sony and Amazon's Spider-Man universe expansion is reportedly continuing regardless, with a second project already said to be in development, so Spider-Noir's cancellation does not appear to be killing the broader partnership even if this particular chapter is done

Nicolas Cage's 'Spider-Noir' Canceled by Prime Video After One Seasonwww.hollywoodreporter.com