Posted in: Amazon Studios, TV | Tagged: spider-noir

Spider-Noir EPs: Cage's Character is 70-30 Humphrey Bogart/Bugs Bunny

Spider-Noir EPs Phil Lord and Chris Miller discuss Nicolas Cage's approach to playing Ben Reilly as Humphrey Bogart crossed with Bugs Bunny.

When it comes to unlikely Spider-Man spinoffs, one that comes to mind is the upcoming Nicolas Cage-starred Spider-Noir for Prime Video, considering the success of the 2018 animated film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which introduced the character. In a rare opportunity, Phil Lord (who co-wrote the film) and regular creative partner, Chris Miller, have reteamed to bring back Cage's Ben Reilly to the small screen, and speaking at the Deadline Contenders TV event, the two opened up about the formula that the Oscar winner concocted performance-wise to bring enough seriousness and playfulness.

Spider-Noir EPs on Star Nicolas Cage Tapping into Humphrey Bogart and Bugs Bunny for Performance

Estimating the performance to be about 70 percent Humphrey Bogart and 30 percent Bugs Bunny, Miller explained Cage's incarnation of Ben and his personality, "One of the things that you don't think about with Noir is that you're like, 'It's super serious,'" he said. "But Bogart always had a twinkle in his eye, and he was always doing something clever, and he and Bugs Bunny have more in common than you might think." Added Lord, "Yeah, there's like a playfulness to it, right? And there's a playfulness to Nick – I think that's why he's so iconic, and there's a playfulness to [showrunner] Oren [Uziel], who we worked with on the Jump Street movies. And so the idea is that the show is: it is a big character drama, it is an amazing mystery, it's a big event television, but it's also light on its feet."

Spider-Noir is based on Marvel's Spider-Man Noir, telling the story of Ben Reilly, a seasoned, down-on-his-luck private investigator in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life, following a deeply personal tragedy, as the city's one and only superhero. "The origin story was this was a character that we developed in the first Spider-Verse movie, and we had an amazing time working with Nick Cage," explained Miller. "And when the idea of us making a live-action Spider show came up, this was the first idea that we had, because it felt like it was a contained universe. It was its own thing."

For more on Miller explaining why they didn't want Spider-Noir as "part of some giant web of interconnected series," tapping into Ben's empathy, internalizing his feelings, and more, you can check out the full interview. The series, which also stars Lamorne Morris, Li Jun Li, and Karen Rodriguez, premieres on May 25th on Prime Video.

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