Spider-Man Noir TV Series Casts Brendan Gleeson as a Villain

Brendan Gleeson is the latest actor to be caught within Nicolas Cage’s spider web. The Golden Globe and Oscar-winning star of The Banshees of Inisherin has been cast as the villain of Sony’s live-action Spider-Man Noir series for Amazon and MGM+, Variety reports. Gleeson is the latest addition to the still-growing cast that includes Cage as a version of the black-clad private investigator he voiced in 2018’s animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and New Girl‘s Lamorne Morris as Robbie Robertson.

Details about Gleeson’s role weren’t immediately available, but Marvel’s original Spider-Man Noircomic 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).

Noir “tells the story of an aging and down on his luck private investigator(Cage) in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life asthe city’s one and only superhero,” the official synopsis states. 

It has been reported that 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.

Emmy Award-winning director Harry Bradbeer (Fleabag, Killing Eve) is set to direct and executive produce the first two episodes of the eight-episode series from co-showrunners and executive producers Oren Uziel (The Lost City, 22 Jump Street) and Steve Lightfoot (Marvel’s The Punisher, Shantaram). The duo developed the series with Spider-Verse visionaries Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and Sony’s Spider-Man movies producer Amy Pascal, with the trio also serving as executive producers.

“No one else could bring such pathos, pain, and heart to this singular character,” Katherine Pope, President of Sony Pictures Television Studios, has said of Cage’s Noir character. Vernon Sanders, head of television, Amazon MGM Studios, added that the Oscar-winning Leaving Las Vegas actor and Longlegs star “is an ideal choice for our new superhero.” 

Gleeson has starred in such dramatic fare as The Banshees of Inisherin, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Braveheart, and Gangs of New York. Along with his role as “MadEye” Moody in several Harry Potter movies, Gleeson’s credits include the films Mission: Impossible II and 28 Days Later, and the television series Mr. Mercedes, The Comey Rule, and State of the Union.