Nicolas Cage and Marvel go way back.

He did two turns as Ghost Rider. And lest we forget, Nicolas Cage isn’t always Nicolas Cage. He was born Nicolas Kim Coppola — Francis Ford Coppola’s nephew — who adopted a new moniker inspired by the Marvel character Luke Cage and avant-garde composer John Cage. (Outside Marvel, he was briefly Superman in The Flash — an experience that left a bad taste in his mouth — and Big Daddy, a Batman parody in Kick-Ass.)

And now he’s back in the superhero sandbox.

Cage makes his leading TV series debut in Spider-Noir as Ben Reilly, a down-on-his-luck private eye in 1930s New York wrestling with his past life as the city’s one and only superhero — Spider-Man. Or The Spider, as he’s known in this world. But when a ruthless (is there any other kind?) mob boss played by Brendan Gleeson enters the picture, Ben is forced out of retirement.

The Prime Video series, based on the comic Spider-Man Noir and first introduced on screen in the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, also stars Lamorne Morris (New Girl), Li Jun Li (Sinners), Jack Huston (Boardwalk Empire), Abraham Popoola (Slow Horses), and Karen Rodriguez (The Hunting Wives).

Sling city: Nicolas Cage leads a double life in Spider-Noir — by day, cash-strapped private-eye Ben Reilly; by night, the vigilante known as The Spider. (Photos: Prime Video)

In a twist befitting its pulp lineage, viewers will be able to stream the series in either “Authentic Black-&-White” or “True-Hue Full Colour”. Best of all, Spider-Noir is completely standalone — no Tom Holland connections, no Spider-Verse continuity, no Marvel homework.

Huston, Li and Popoola also play noir reimaginings of familiar Spider-Man adversaries — Flint Marko/Sandman, Felicia Hardy aka Black Cat, and crime boss Tombstone, respectively. (More on that in a bit.)

And as Li, Huston and Popoola explained, that dual presentation isn’t just a stylistic embellishment, but an extension of the show’s deeper themes of duality and moral ambiguity.

The trio spoke to via Zoom from New York during a global virtual press junket for the series. (Sadly, Cage didn't have time for us.) 

“It’s important to know that, you know, sort of being a bit of a purist, I thought I’d gravitate so much towards the black and white,” Huston told 8days.sg. “But we were lucky enough to see it both ways.”

And what they saw was amazing. 

“The characters work very well in black-and-white, because that is the noir essence. But I was equally as surprised how well the colour works,” he added.

Caught in the web: Jack Huston (photo: Paul Romo), Li Jun Li (Photo: Sarah Krick) and Abraham Popoola (Photo: YellowBelly Photo) play noir versions of iconic Spider-Man villains.

For Li, who plays lounge singer and femme fatale Cat Hardy, the monochrome version draws directly from the series’ old-Hollywood inspirations.

“The black-and-white really captures the noir aesthetic, stylistic authenticity to what the characters are trying to convey,” Li said. “But then at the same time, I think our cast with [showrunner] Oren [Uziel] have found this balance between keeping it aesthetically true, but also adding that contemporary delivery as well, so that it can still be viewed by today’s audience, especially in the colour version.”

There’s another benefit to Spider-Noir’s dual-format experiment.

“I think it’s a wonderful way to open up the door to a younger audience and an older audience,” Huston said. “You can watch it in black-and-white and then go to colour, or you can do it the opposite way. And I think the people watching in colour will be intrigued enough to try it in black-and-white, and then they’ll see it in a completely different way.”

But the black-and-white gimmick, if you want to call it that, went much deeper than simply desaturating the colours in post-production, with a lot of thought put into every in-camera decision.

“We need to also let people know that it wasn’t just filmed in colour and toggled into black-and-white,” Li explained.

“Every single set piece, even make-up, for example, if Cat Hardy was wearing red lipstick, it would look black in black-and-white. Therefore, we had to pick shades that complement each other, that would look good, both in the colour version as well as still fitting the composition of the black-and-white version.”

She added: “It was incredible. The amount of work and the specifics that went into the texture. The colours were just completely unique as well.”

Behind the scenes, costume designer Trayce Gigi Field (Dead to Me) and her team had to balance two visual worlds at once.

“Tracey had to work on picking costume that could serve both versions,” Popoola said. “The costumes, the material, the colours, the textures made sense for both.”

The cast also found themselves gradually pulled deeper into the noir atmosphere while filming. Popoola recalled how cinematographers — David Lynch’s go-to-lensman Peter Deming (Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive) and Darren Tiernan (Perry Mason) — would sometimes show actors scenes in monochrome before shooting.

Eye soar: Whether in “Authentic Black-&-White” or “True-Hue Full Colour”, Li Jun Li looks spectacular as Cat Hardy.

“You got to see the feel and the mood of the scene you’re about to enter into,” Popoola said. “So that definitely just gave you a little bit of like a pep in your step and kind of understood, okay, this is a very particular type of style that you need to rise to.”

“We would walk on set and look at each other and say, ‘Oh my God, look at that costume,’” Huston laughed.

The cast also stressed that Spider-Noir was never approached as a straight-up comic-book adaptation.

“Oren created something so unique, so original that it almost didn’t have to be in the Spider-Verse, but it was,” Huston said. “He was creating something with a long-standing love of film noir, of comic books and mashing them together.”

Li added that they were largely handed “a blank canvas” to reinterpret iconic characters within the noir setting.

“I think we just went in there and was able to be creative,” she said. 

At the end of the day, noir or no noir, it’s the thrill of watching Nicolas friggin’ Cage at work that gets the actors psyched.

“When we all met each other for the first time at the table read, the rhythm kind of just took care of itself,” Li recalled. “I did not know that Nick has such rhythm, but it pulled me to really step up and he really elevates our work.”

Huston agreed, recalling the moment the Oscar-feted actor first slipped into character during the table read.

“We all heard him go into his Ben Reilly and we were like, ‘The bar has been raised. Come on, bring your A game,’” Huston said. “It’s an amazing thing to come to work to.”

Mass appeal: The cast – (from left) Lamorne Morris, Karen Rodriguez, Li Jun Li, and Jack Huston – and showrunner/creator Oren Uziel at the CCXP (Comic Con Experience) Mexico in April at the Centro Citibanamex, Mexico City. We have no idea who dressed up as The Spider. (Photo: Prime Video)

Spider-Noir streams on Prime Video from May 27. (Main pic: Prime Video)