Spider-Noir showrunner Oren Uziel and producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller say there's a very good reason why Nicolas Cage is playing Ben Reilly instead of classic Spider-Man Peter Parker in Amazon MGM Studios' upcoming Spider-Noir streaming series. As it turns out, it all comes back to the need for the show to have the same hardboiled feel as classic film noir shows, with Peter representing a level of optimism that Spider-Noir doesn't have.
"This character's very different from the Peter Parker from the movies. He's older and jaded, and not afraid to punch a guy in the face drunkenly," Miller tells Esquire, with Lord adding, "He already had his Chinatown disillusionment moment that happened years and years ago."
