New Live-Action Spider-Man TV Show Breaks 3 Marvel Rules (That Were Once Required by Law)

Sony’s Spider-Man spinoffs haven’t always landed well, but the trailer for the new Spider-Noir series – starring Nicolas Cage as an alternate universe noir version of the wall-crawler – is different. Spider-Noir is easily this year’s most exciting Marvel show, a creative reinvention of the franchise set in 1930s New York. The first Spider-Noir trailer shows that this hero (dubbed “The Spider”) is down on his luck and barely in touch with his humanity, broken by unknown tragedies that he’s suffered in his life.

Nicolas Cage’s new Spider-Man is clearly different to any other alternate version of the hero we’ve seen before – possibly in any medium. There’s still the traditional spider-bite, there may well be organic webbing, and he’s got supporting Marvel characters including riffs on Molten Man, Black Cat, and Electro; but he’s a private investigator rather than a journalist, and he’s unlikely to be cracking wise. Most remarkably, though, we already know he breaks three Marvel rules.

This is a Spider-Man We Could Never Have Had Before

Marvel sold Sony the film (and some TV) rights to Spider-Man and his associated characters all the way back in 1999, drastically underestimating the character’s potential. That was long before Marvel Studios and the birth of the MCU, of course, and Marvel has since depended on new deals with Sony to gain access to Peter Parker at all. Most of these contracts are closely guarded secrets, but there’s one exception; the 2011 Sony-Marvel contract leaked as a result of the Sony hack in 2014, meaning we have a good idea what restrictions Marvel placed on Sony.

This old contract is impressively thorough, with every detail carefully chosen (as you’d expect given the legal heavyweights likely involved in the discussion). For Marvel, the main goal was clearly to ensure nothing was done that risked damaging the Spider-Man brand, meaning there are very specific limits on any of the wall-crawler’s actions. For example, this old contract specifies that Spider-Man “does not abuse alcohol.” The restriction was lifted if he’s in his symbiote costume, giving Sony a little room to maneuver, but the fact remains; there are most certainly no bar-room brawls for Spider-Man.

And that brings us to the Spider-Noir trailer, where it’s clear Nicolas Cage’s iteration of the wall-crawler most certainly does abuse alcohol (he explicitly refers to getting “plastered”), and we see flashes of just that kind of forbidden fight. Viewed from a contractual lens, that first trailer is basically an acknowledgment that the rules have changed. This is a Spider-Man story that Sony wouldn’t have been allowed to tell just a decade or so ago.

That’s Not the Only Change to Spider-Noir

As striking as this may be, there’s another element of Spider-Noir that’s worthy of note; the fact this version of the character goes by the name of Ben Reilly, not Peter Parker. We don’t yet know why – whether it’s the Spider’s real name or an alias he’s taken up – but that change of name would also have been forbidden by the old contracts. There, it’s stipulated that any “alternative version” of Spider-Man must go by their given name in the comics, with the example of Miguel O’Hara as Spider-Man 2099. In the comics, Spider-Man Noir is indeed Peter Parker, not Ben Reilly.

The name “Ben Reilly” does come up in the contract, though. According to this document, it could only be used for Scarlet Spider, the alias taken up by the clone of Spider-Man who went by those two identities. Again, it’s strong evidence the contracts have changed a lot, the relationship between Marvel and Sony is better now, and this story really isn’t one we could have seen before.

The name change has been done for creative reasons, but it’s also possible there’s still a contractual element to this; that Spider-Noir has more flexibility than other Spdier-Man stories simply because it has dropped both the Spider-Man and Peter Parker names, meaning Marvel didn’t need to be worried about brand damage for an atypical “alternative version” of the wall-crawler. That’s only speculation, but it would make sense for all these surprising changes to be connected.

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