One of 2026's biggest Spider-Man projects is breaking a longtime tradition for the Marvel hero. Spider-Man has been adapted many times over the years across comics, movies, TV, and video games, with multiple iterations of the character set to release this year alone in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Season 2, and Spider-Noir. The latter will see Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage star in an eight-episode live-action series set in the 1930s and centered around the superhero private investigator Ben Reilly. This take on Spider-Man Noir will be very different from the wall-crawler that fans are used to seeing, even throwing aside his usual superhero name to go by The Spider.
Empire Magazine (via Cosmic Marvel) revealed that Nicolas Cage's Ben Reilly, aka The Spider, will swear in the upcoming Amazon Prime Video series. That decision breaks a major trend for Spider-Man adaptations, as no version of the character, Peter Parker or not, generally swears.
Previously, a Sony data breach revealed the studio's 2011 contract with Marvel, which included certain character-integrity obligations for any incarnation of Spider-Man (via Reddit). The contract notes that the hero "must not use foul language beyond PG-13," smoke tobacco, or abuse alcohol.
It's possible that Spider-Noir's breach of many of these restrictions is why he will go by Ben Reilly and The Spider in his 2026 live-action debut, abandoning the familiar Peter Parker and Spider-Man monikers.
Reilly's swearing makes a lot of sense, given that Spider-Noir has officially been rated TV-14, which marks the highest age rating in the wall-crawler's history and the second-most-mature available in the U.S. TV classification system.
Spider-Man typically doesn't swear at all, although Far From Home's cliffhanger teased fans with an almost-F-bomb as Peter exclaimed, "what the f-" as his identity was exposed by Mysterio and the Daily Bugle.
Why Spider-Noir's Major Shifts Are a Great Thing
It makes sense to introduce these more mature elements, such as drinking alcohol and swearing, in Spider-Noir. These practices are commonplace in the detective noir tales that Spider-Noir mimics, and Ben Reilly is older than Peter Parker usually is in this adaptation, played by the 62-year-old Nicolas Cage.
The studio already confirmed one unsettling difference between Parker and Reilly, with Cage playing the role as a "spider pretending to be a person." While these shifts may come as a shock, they help justify the series' existence as something truly different, not just a Spider-Man tale that happens to be in the 1930s.
Spider-Noir has largely flown under the radar until recently, as Sony is beginning to ramp up marketing ahead of its May 27 premiere on Amazon Prime Video. Fans have no shortage of reasons to be excited for the series, given that it will be Spider-Man's first-ever live-action series and the first leading TV role for Oscar-winner Cage, pointing toward a strong premise and script.
