The first trailer for the Nicolas Cage-led Spider-Noir series has landed, and it looks… surprisingly good? Better than it has any right to be? At the very least, the trailer itself is a better watch than any of the live-action films in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe like Venom, Morbius, and Madame Web.
In fact, Spider-Noir is shaping up to be a perfect reminder of why we need the Sony’s Spider-Man Universe franchise in the first place. This isn’t the MCU, and that’s exactly the point.
Why We Need Sony’s Spider-Man Universe
Now that Disney has absorbed 20th Century Fox and locked up franchises like X-Men and Fantastic Four, Marvel Studios has a near-total monopoly on the Marvel movies and TV shows being produced. In some ways, that’s been a good thing. It’s given the MCU a wider pool of characters from which to draw, and it’s allowed for multiverse-hopping twists like the Fox X-Men playing a big part in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday.
But there’s no getting around the fact that the superhero movie pond has shrunk since the Fox acquisition. We now have one less studio releasing Marvel movies, and it’s led to the X-Men fading into the pop culture background a bit (the hubbub over X-Men ‘97 notwithstanding). There was a point where Fox was attempting to release multiple X-Men movies a year in direct competition with the MCU’s lineup. Now the X-Men are themselves part of the MCU machine, and it may be years still before we see a rebooted cast of mutant heroes in that universe.
There was something to be said for the era when we got movies like 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past and 2017’s Logan alongside the Marvel Studios fare. These were not only great superhero movies in their own right, but they also offered something a little different from what Marvel was doing. More options is usually a good thing.
Now that Fox’s X-Men universe has been rolled into the MCU machine, that just leaves Sony off to the side still doing its own thing. They’re now the only game in town if you want a Marvel movie that isn’t crafted with the MCU’s house style. That’s exactly why Sony’s Spider-Man Universe is so necessary.
Granted, the obvious counterpoint here is that Sony’s Spider-Man Universe has a pretty poor track record. This universe started off on mediocre footing with 2018’s Venom and has really only gotten worse from there. Fans love to mock these Spider-Man-less Spider-Man movies, but they certainly don’t turn out to watch them. Sony learned that the hard way when they foolishly rereleased Morbius in theaters to capitalize on the Morbin’ Time memes.
But on the other hand, there are the Spider-Verse animated movies. Granted, these don’t technically fall under the SSU umbrella, but they’re still an example of Sony blazing its own trail and crafting something wholly unlike what we’re seeing from the MCU. To say that the series has been successful would be a major understatement. Both movies are among the best superhero projects ever released, and outclass anything we’ve gotten from the MCU. They singlehandedly justify the notion of a separate studio controlling some of Marvel’s IP.
Currently, the SSU seems to be on life support following the release of 2024’s Kraven the Hunter. There are no new live-action movies on the horizon, and no indication that the Knull tease from 2024’s Venom: The Last Dance will yield anything. Apart from Spider-Noir, the only other projects Sony seems to be currently developing are more Spider-Verse spinoffs like 2027’s Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse.
As lousy as the SSU has generally been, it would be a shame if this shared universe ended here. Sony can do great things with the Spider-Man franchise when the right ideas and creators are involved. Case in point: the first two Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies. The cinematic world is still a better place if there’s more than one fish swimming in the Marvel pond.
The Obvious Secret to Spider-Noir’s Success
By all appearances, Spider-Noir appears to mark a major turning point for Sony’s live-action Spider-Man output. Unlike the Morbiuses and Madame Webs of the world, it actually looks good. Showrunners Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot clearly have a vision for this stylish universe, and they aren’t afraid to execute on that vision. And as eyebrow-raising as the idea of Nic Cage playing a live-action Spider-Man may be, the trailer suggests the series is striking just the right tone with that casting choice.
It helps that Spider-Noir has a very obvious advantage over the SSU movies. It’s a Spider-Man show that actually features Spider-Man. Clearly, Sony had to bend a little to meet the terms of whatever labyrinthine agreement they’ve got going on with Marvel. Cage isn’t playing Peter Parker, but Ben Reilly. Similarly, Li Jun Li isn’t playing Black Cat, but more of a Black Cat-inspired femme fatale named Cat Hardy. But this is still a series about a spider-powered hero who dons a mask and swings through the New York skyline. Compared to the SSU movies, which generally bent over backwards to avoid directly referencing Spider-Man, this is a real breath of fresh air.
The series suggests that this is the path forward for Sony. However they manage it, they need to pivot to making movies and shows that actually focus on Spider-Man, rather than giving us lukewarm origin stories for villains with all the Spider-Man connections stripped away. If the existence of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in the MCU makes the character a no-go in the SSU, then do what Spider-Noir is doing and feature alternate universe versions of the character instead. Heck, build a shared universe around Spider-Gwen.
Again, Sony is capable of doing great things with the Spider-Man franchise. The trick is putting that franchise in the hands of creators who understand it and giving them the freedom to go wild. The SSU movies to date have felt like the result of studio executives trying to clinically exploit available IP, not creators trying to tell earnest stories. Spider-Noir, at least, feels like an example of the latter.
Hopefully, Spider-Noir represents not the last gasp of Sony’s efforts to craft its own live-action Marvel franchise, but the start of something much different and much better. If we’re lucky, we’ll see more live-action movies announced that take a more creator- and character-driven approach to Spider-Man’s world. We don’t particularly care if Sony continues the continuity established in the previous SSU films (in fact, it might be best to ditch that and start from scratch). What matters is that we still have a studio out there crafting Marvel movies that isn’t Marvel itself. There’s room enough in Hollywood for the both of them, and the fans only benefit from having more options.
For more, brush up on every Spider-Man movie and series in development.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.
