Brendan Gleeson (The Guard, The Banshees of Inisherin) is set to join MGM+ and Prime Video’s live-action Spider-Noir series as the show’s villainous antagonist, according to Comicbook.com. Gleeson will star alongside Nicolas Cage (Dream Scenario, Longlegs), known for voicing the gray-scale Spider-Man hero in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and is cast as Noir in the live-action. Lamorne Morris (New Girl, Fargo) will also join them in the role of Robbie Robertson via mxdwn.
According to mxdwn, the series “[follows] the story of aging and down on his luck private investigator (Cage) in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life as the city’s one and only superhero.”
According to Comicbook.com, the series may subvert viewer’s expectations. The news outlet reported that for the live-action series, “Cage’s character isn’t Peter Parker, who was reimagined as an investigative reporter and crusading crime-fighter who took on the mob against the backdrop of the Great Depression in the 2008 Spider-Man Noir series by David Hine, Fabrice Sapolsky, and Carmine Di Giandomenico.”
However, because the series is in its early production phases, more details about Gleeson’s villainous role are limited. Comicbook.com revealed that the series may take inspiration from its comics, saying that “Marvel’s original Spider-Man Noir comic re-imagined many of Spider-Man’s classic villains as gangster types in 1930s New York. They included Norman “The Goblin” Osborn, a carnival freak turned crime lord, and his carnie cronies Kraven (a former animal trainer), the Vulture (an animalistic freak show cannibal), and the Chameleon (a master of disguise),” theorizing the series may take the same approach with Gleeson’s villain.
Katherine Pope (New Girl, The Dropout), the President of Sony Pictures Television Studios, commented about Spider-Noir in light of the mystery surrounding the series. She boasted of Cage’s character Noir, saying, “No one else could bring such pathos, pain, and heart to this singular character” via Comicbook.com.
While information on the new series is slowly being released, executive producers and co-showrunners Oren Uziel (Mortal Kombat, 22 Jump Street) and Steve Lightfoot (The Punisher, Hannibal) already have the first two episodes in development reports mxdwn.