Nicolas Cage Says He Was Relieved When Prime Video Canceled Spider-Noir: “Whew, Thank You!”

Nicolas Cage is not mourning Spider-Noir. Speaking to IGN in early November at a red-carpet event for his upcoming sports comedy Madden, the actor said he was relieved when Prime Video decided not to order a second season of the Marvel series, which was canceled on September 4 after a single eight-episode run. Asked whether Ben Reilly’s story had more to tell, Cage answered with a flat no and described his reaction to the news as “Whew, thank you!” The comments, widely reported over the past few days, repeat and extend a line he gave Deadline within days of the cancellation: that one season was exactly what he wanted.

The reaction lands in an unusual position for a canceled show. Spider-Noir earned strong reviews, a large Nielsen audience and the most Emmy nominations of any Prime Video series this year, and it won five Emmys two days after Amazon pulled the plug. Cage’s relief, then, is not the usual story of an actor shrugging off a flop. It is the story of a star who says he got the ending he wanted from a series that, by most outside measures, deserved another look.

• Cage told IGN that a single season of Spider-Noir was perfect and that he felt relieved when Prime Video did not renew it
• Prime Video canceled the series on September 4, 2026, reportedly because respectable but not outsized viewership did not justify a high production cost
• The show won five Creative Arts Emmys on September 6, two days after the cancellation, from 11 nominations
• Cage has also said he refused to sign an AI waiver for the series and will probably not work with Amazon again
• Sony and Amazon are reportedly nearing an order for a separate Spider-Man series based on the Clone Saga

What Cage told IGN

The interview, conducted by IGN’s Jeffrey Vega, gave Cage a chance to explain a statement that some viewers had read as polite damage control. He said he meant what he said in September, called the season perfect and argued that an actor risks wearing out his welcome by repeating a character. He described Ben Reilly as highly idiosyncratic and the performance as high-risk, tightrope work that would have been harder to sustain across a second and third season. By his account, the cancellation arrived at a convenient moment, because he is now committed to HBO’s True Detective, which tells a self-contained story each season. He compared the one-season format to the classic detective series of earlier eras and said he did not want to keep repeating himself.

None of this amounts to a complaint about the show. Cage was clear that he is proud of the season and loves the character, and the remarks are consistent with his statement to Deadline, in which he said that “one season is perfect” and that he had said what he wanted to say through what he called a pop-art version of Spider-Man. The performance itself was built on contrasts. Cage has said he approached the role as roughly 70 percent Humphrey Bogart and 30 percent Bugs Bunny, a spider trying to pass as a human, and the series let him play the Spider as both a weary 1930s private investigator and a vigilante in a trench coat. Spider-Noir was also his first regular television role, which makes a one-season arc a natural fit for a film actor who has spent a career moving between very different parts.

How the cancellation unfolded

All eight episodes of Spider-Noir arrived on May 25 on MGM+ and reached Prime Video around the world on May 27. The series, developed by Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot with executive producers Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Amy Pascal, was released in both color and black and white, and its cast included Lamorne Morris, Li Jun Li, Jack Huston and Brendan Gleeson. On September 4, Deadline and TheWrap reported that Prime Video would not proceed with a second season. The streamer did not publicly explain the decision, but Deadline pointed to a familiar equation: the series had respectable viewership that was not outsized, and it was expensive to make, partly because the production produced both color and monochrome versions.

The numbers show why the decision surprised fans. TheWrap reported that the show logged 2.6 billion viewing minutes in its first six weeks, according to Nielsen, and its critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes sits around 92 percent. Deadline noted, however, that it fell out of the platform’s daily Top 10 faster than recent Prime Video hits such as Reacher, and that streamers weigh cost against performance above all else. Prime Video has never confirmed what the show cost, and Den of Geek noted that unverified online rumors had put the figure extremely high, along with a claim from a second-unit crew member that the color version had not been planned originally and required months of reshoots. Those details are unconfirmed, and they should be read as such.

The co-creators did not hide their disappointment. SlashFilm noted that Uziel had unused ideas he hoped a second season could explore, and he made similar comments to Variety. What the creative team did get, in the end, was a complete first season that ends cleanly, which is the point Cage keeps returning to.

Five Emmys, two days after the cancellation

The timing was the cruelest part. Spider-Noir entered Emmy weekend with 11 nominations, the most of any Prime Video program this year, and on Sunday, September 6, it won five Creative Arts Emmys: cinematography, sound editing, stunt coordination, title design and special visual effects. Gold Derby pointed out that the cancellation came well after voting closed, so it had no effect on the results. Asked backstage whether they hoped the win would change Prime Video’s mind, the stunt coordinators joked that they would gladly make the call if someone told them whom to ring.

The awards turned a cancellation into a kind of validation, and it gives the show a different afterlife from many one-season series. It also adds context to Cage’s comments. A star who sees his series honored for craft, then leaves it behind on his own terms, has little reason to complain. Every Movie Plug has covered how performers choose projects across a long career in its Actor Spotlight profile of Brad Pitt, which is a useful companion to the way Cage talks about avoiding repetition.

The AI waiver and why Cage may not return to Amazon

The most newsworthy part of Cage’s recent remarks has little to do with ratings. In October, at a New York Comic Con panel, he said Amazon asked him to sign a waiver allowing artificial intelligence to be used on Spider-Noir and that he declined. He called Amazon a very AI-friendly company, pointing to its reported $50 billion investment in OpenAI, and said he is “not an AI-friendly actor.” He added at that panel that he will probably not work with the studio again, which he said is fine with him, and IGN’s coverage repeated the point. Amazon has not been quoted responding in the reports cited here, and the exact terms of any waiver have not been made public.

Cage has been consistent on the issue. IGN noted that at the 2025 Saturn Awards he warned that letting AI alter a performance even slightly would erode the integrity of the art. The debate runs through the industry this year: SAG-AFTRA members ratified a new TV and theatrical contract on June 4 with new rules for synthetic performers, as laid out in Every Movie Plug’s essay AI Cannot Act, and the wider picture is covered in How 2026 Became the Breakout Year for Artificial Intelligence in Cinema. The tension is visible in the news cycle too, from Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey series to the debates over what counts as a performance.

The comments also raise a practical question for Amazon MGM Studios, which is leaning on big-name talent across its slate. Prime Video is currently making the God of War series with Dave Bautista as Kratos, has finished filming Fallout season 3, and Amazon MGM is also running the search for the next James Bond, a process Every Movie Plug followed in Robert Pattinson Reportedly Screen-Tested for James Bond as the 007 Casting Race Tightens. Whether a star’s stance on AI affects future casting is speculation, and nothing in the reporting suggests it has.

What the cancellation says about Sony’s Spider-Man plans

Spider-Noir was the first series to reach the screen under a multi-title deal between Amazon MGM Studios and Sony Pictures Television, and Deadline reported that the partnership would continue. Weeks later, Deadline said Prime Video was nearing a series order for a show inspired by the Clone Saga storyline, centered on the Spider-Man clones Ben Reilly and Kaine Parker. Kelvin Yu, creator of American Born Chinese, is reportedly writing it, with Pascal, Lord and Miller expected to executive produce. The report said it would likely follow the same route as its predecessor, launching on MGM+ before reaching Prime Video. Representatives for Amazon MGM Studios and Sony TV declined to comment, so the project should be treated as reported rather than confirmed.

The gap between small-screen and big-screen Spider-Man is striking. Sony and Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Brand New Day became one of the biggest films in history this summer, a run chronicled in The Renaissance of the Web-Slinger, and Miles Morales returns in Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse on June 18, 2027, one of the entries in Every Movie Plug’s Most Anticipated Movies of 2027. The character’s theatrical value is not in doubt. What Spider-Noir tested was whether an expensive, stylized spinoff could pay for itself on streaming, and Prime Video’s answer was no, even as the show collected awards.

Marvel Studios, which has its own plans, is moving in a different direction. It recently announced its X-Men cast, and the question of how a shared universe holds together across studios and formats is explored in Behind the Cape: Why DC Struggled to Match Marvel’s Cinematic Empire.

What comes next for Cage

Cage is not short of work. He was announced in mid-October as a lead of True Detective season 5 alongside Antonio Banderas, and Madden, the sports comedy that brought him to the IGN red carpet, is on the way. AOL noted that he has a run of two or three films a year lined up through 2028. That workload helps explain his enthusiasm for stories that end. Spider-Noir gave him a chance to play a comic-book hero in a noir setting without a long-term commitment.

For fans, there is a consolation. The animated Spider-Man Noir that Cage voiced in the Spider-Verse films remains part of the franchise, and all eight episodes of the live-action series are still available on Prime Video, in both versions. The finished season is also a reminder that streaming cancellations do not always mean a story is unfinished. Readers can follow every renewal, cancellation and casting update in the Film News section and find longer features on the franchises and actors behind them in the articles section.

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