Nic Cage Is Playing Ben Reilly in ‘Spider-Noir’

We’ve had glimpses at Amazon and Sony’s plans for a live-action spin on Spider-Man Noir for a while now, but Prime Video’s latest tease has thrown a major curveball into the spider-verse: Nic Cage is playing Spider-Man in Spider-Noir… but he’s not playing Peter Parker.

Today, Prime Video dropped a new poster for Spider-Noir, confirming that the series will hit the streamer in 2026 in both full color and black-and-white, as previously rumored. But the poster also confirmed another thing: in revealing the door of Noir’s private investigator offices… the alter ego of this Spider-Man is not Peter Parker, but B. Reilly. Or Ben, to his frenemies.

The city needs a hero…hopefully they find someone. “Spider-Noir” – a new live action series starring Nicolas Cage – arrives 2026 in both black & white and color. pic.twitter.com/jkvTbhmjwH

— Prime Video (@PrimeVideo) December 4, 2025

Both in the 2009 comic book series that originated the character and in Nic Cage’s previous portrayal in 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the Spider-Man of Earth-90214 was, as is the case in many realities of the Marvel multiverse, named Peter Benjamin Parker. It’s no surprise that the iteration in Spider-Noir, while heavily drawing on the aesthetics of both, is standing alone from both the comics and the cinematic portrayal that basically created this show in the first place—but it is very surprising that Noir is being given not just a new name, but a very specific one with a lot of connotations and hang-ups from years of comics history.

Ben Reilly is, of course, best known as the infamous star of one of the most controversial storylines in Spidey’s comic history: the Clone Saga, which saw Peter Parker and his clone, Ben Reilly, likewise equally gaslit by the nefarious Miles Warren into believing that the former was in fact the clone of the latter and that Ben was always the “true” Spider-Man. Despite Ben seemingly perishing at the climax of the saga (but then again, who really stays dead in a comic book these days?), he’s reappeared over and over again to basically rehash all that cloning trauma and his waxing-and-waning relationship with his “brother” Peter ever since.

It may just be that Spider-Noir is simply being a bit cheeky and using the name to get a rise out of Spider-Man fans. Perhaps “Ben Reilly” is a mask on top of a mask, and simply the public-facing pseudonym Peter uses as a private investigator while also operating as Spider-Man. Perhaps he is Ben Reilly, and we’re meant to expect a big mystery in Noir could be the eventual arrival of Nic Cage as Peter Parker, and we get some Cage vs. Cage shenanigans along the way.

We’ll have to wait until next year to find out: Spider-Man Noir begins streaming on Amazon some time in 2026.

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