Brendan Gleeson officially swings into Amazon’s Spider-Man Noir series for what’s rumored to be a villainous role

Brendan Gleeson is officially joining Amazon’s Spider-Man Noir series, possibly to play the show’s main villain.

Did Amazon’s live-action Spider-Man Noir series find its main villain? Variety seems to think so. According to the entertainment outlet, Brendan Gleeson is officially joining the cast of the hard-boiled Spider-Man series, possibly in a villainous role. Details about Gleeson’s character remain a mystery. However, Variety believes he could play the main villain in the show that stars a stacked cast, including Nicolas Cage as Spider-Man Noir, with Lamorne Morris as Robbie Robertson, Abraham Popoola as a World War I veteran, and Li Jun Li as a singer at a premiere New York nightclub.

Here’s the official logline for Amazon’s Spider-Man Noir series courtesy of Amazon and MGM+:

The show “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 as the city’s one and only superhero.”

The show is expected to consist of eight 45-minute episodes. Cage has said, “One of the things that I like about this potential show is that it’s fantasy. It’s not really people beating people up. Monsters are involved.”

Cage’s character is Ben Reilly, A retired superhero with the powers of Spider-Man who is too old and broken, both figuratively and literally, to suit up the way he used to. Instead, he takes low-level PI cases and stays out of the ones involving high-profile names, like the Mayor. Through flashbacks, we learn about his past heroics and past failures that led him to this point. He is charming but weathered, and the pilot sets him up for a good character arc moving forward.

Spider-Noir comes to us from Oren Uziel (22 Jump Street) and Steve Lightfoot (Marvel’s The Punisher), who will serve as co-showrunners and executive producers. Harry Bradbeer (Killing Eve) will direct and executive produce the first two episodes. Uziel and Lightfoot developed the series alongside Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Amy Pascal, the team behind the Spider-Verse movies. Lord, Miller, and Pascal will also serve as executive producers on Spider-Noir.

Are you excited to hear Brendan Gleeson is confirmed for Amazon’s Spider-Man Noir series? Will he play someone new or an existing villain from the Marvel comics? What is Cage’s Spider-Man Noir suit going to look like? I have so many questions. Stay tuned for more details.

About the Author

Born and raised in New York, then immigrated to Canada, Steve Seigh has been a JoBlo.com editor, columnist, and critic since 2012. He started with Ink & Pixel, a column celebrating the magic and evolution of animation, before launching the companion YouTube series Animation Movies Revisited. He’s also the host of the Talking Comics Podcast, a personality-driven audio show focusing on comic books, film, music, and more. You’ll rarely catch him without headphones on his head and pancakes on his breath.