Spider-Noir has been canceled after a single season by Amazon.
Amazon apparently has no problem spending enormous amounts of money on a television series that repeatedly sheds viewers — provided that series is The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Spider-Noir isn’t getting the same luxury.
Prime Video has canceled Nicolas Cage’s Spider-Noir after just one season, ending the live-action Sony Marvel series despite strong reviews, positive audience reception, significant awards recognition, and a respectable streaming debut.
According to Deadline, Prime Video has declined to order a second season of the eight-episode series.
The cancellation is particularly surprising considering Spider-Noir heads into the 2026 Emmy ceremonies with 11 nominations — more than any other Prime Video series this year.
The series also currently holds a 92% critic score and 90% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, according to Variety.
There is certainly an argument to be made that streaming services can’t continue spending enormous amounts of money on shows that don’t attract audiences large enough to justify those investments.
But that argument becomes considerably harder for Amazon to make when The Rings of Power is sitting right there.
Nicolas Cage’s Spider-Noir Is Finished
Spider-Noir starred Cage as Ben Reilly, a down-on-his-luck private investigator operating in 1930s New York who is forced to confront his former life as the city’s only superhero, The Spider.
It marked Cage’s first regular television role and followed his previous portrayal of Spider-Man Noir in Sony’s animated Spider-Verse films.
The series premiered on MGM+ on May 25 before all eight episodes arrived on Prime Video on May 27.
Nicolas Cage in Spider-Noir – Prime Video, YouTube
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Amazon even gave viewers two different ways to experience the series. According to Amazon, viewers could watch the entire show in either “Authentic Black & White” or “True-Hue Color.”
Despite all of that effort, there won’t be a second season.
Deadline reports that Amazon MGM Studios and Sony Pictures Television will continue working together on Marvel projects, with another series reportedly moving toward a potential greenlight.
Spider-Noir Wasn’t Hated — Quite The Opposite
This isn’t a situation where Amazon dumped a critically savaged superhero show that audiences rejected.
People actually seemed to like Spider-Noir.
Its 92% Rotten Tomatoes critic score is accompanied by a 90% audience score, while those 11 Emmy nominations include recognition for production design, visual effects, stunt coordination, prosthetic makeup, and other technical categories.
The Spider-Noir mask – Prime Video, YouTube
That makes Spider-Noir the most Emmy-nominated Prime Video program of 2026.
The show also had an impressive debut.
Spider-Noir debuted as the No. 2 streaming original in the United States, generating approximately 851 million viewing minutes during its first week according to Nielsen. Over its first six weeks, the series reportedly accumulated approximately 2.6 billion viewing minutes.
The problem appears to have been longevity.
Spider-Noir quickly disappeared from Prime Video’s daily Top 10 and didn’t demonstrate the sustained viewing performance Amazon wanted from the series.
Then there’s the cost.
Did Spider-Noir Really Cost $400 Million?
One of the more astonishing numbers attached to Spider-Noir has been the claim that Amazon spent as much as $400 million producing its eight episodes.
That would work out to a staggering $50 million per episode.
However, that number should be treated cautiously.
Amazon and Sony have not publicly confirmed a $400 million budget, and conflicting reports have disputed that estimate.
Spider-Noir – Prime Video, YouTube
What does appear clear is that Spider-Noir was an expensive production.
The elaborate 1930s setting, superhero visual effects, high-profile cast, and unusual decision to offer the entire series in both color and black-and-white presentations certainly didn’t make it a cheap television show.
If Amazon looked at the production cost alongside the show’s inability to maintain its initial audience, canceling it becomes considerably easier to understand.
Streaming services ultimately have to determine whether the number of people watching a program justifies what they’re spending to make it.
There’s just one rather enormous problem with that defense.
Amazon Keeps Pouring Money Into The Rings of Power
If expensive television shows need audiences capable of justifying their budgets, how does Amazon explain The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power?
Amazon has continued pouring enormous resources into its Tolkien adaptation despite years of evidence that a significant portion of its audience has walked away. The company reportedly paid approximately $250 million simply to acquire the television rights before spending roughly $465 million producing the first season.
Then came one of the more embarrassing statistics surrounding the series.
According to internal Amazon data previously reported by The Hollywood Reporter, only 37% of U.S. viewers who started Season 1 actually finished it.
Internationally, the completion rate was reportedly 45%.
Morfydd Clark as Galadriel; Benjamin Walker as High King Gil-galad; Ismael Cruz Córdova as Arondir in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2024), Amazon MGM Studios
Season 2 subsequently demonstrated another substantial audience decline.
Samba TV reported approximately 902,000 U.S. households watched the Season 2 premiere during its first four days, compared to approximately 1.8 million households for the Season 1 premiere during its first three days.
Luminate subsequently reported an even more dramatic decline, estimating that total minutes watched for Season 2 had fallen approximately 60% compared to Season 1.
And yet The Rings of Power continued.
Amazon renewed the series for Season 3 despite its astronomical investment and substantial audience erosion. That creates an uncomfortable contrast with Spider-Noir.
Here is a superhero series that earned strong reviews, was embraced by the overwhelming majority of Rotten Tomatoes users who rated it, received more Emmy nominations than any other Prime Video program this year, and generated billions of Nielsen viewing minutes.
Amazon nevertheless determined that the audience wasn’t sufficient to justify continuing to spend money on it.
Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2024), Amazon MGM Studios
Meanwhile, The Rings of Power can cost well over $100 million per season, lose a substantial portion of the audience that originally showed up for it, and continue marching forward.
Perhaps that says more about Amazon’s enormous initial investment in the Lord of the Rings rights — and its determination to make that investment work — than it does about the relative performance of either program.
But for Spider-Noir fans, the message is difficult to miss.
Apparently, being expensive isn’t necessarily a death sentence at Prime Video.
Being expensive without being The Lord of the Rings might be.
Another Blow to Sony’s Spider-Man Universe
The cancellation also represents another setback for Sony’s years-long attempt to turn its collection of Spider-Man characters into a sprawling entertainment franchise.
Sony’s live-action universe produced Venom, Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter, but ultimately failed to establish the interconnected cinematic universe the studio once appeared to envision.
Its television ambitions haven’t gone particularly smoothly either.
Silk: Spider Society was originally supposed to be the first television series produced under the Amazon-Sony agreement before being scrapped.
That left Spider-Noir as the first series under the deal to actually reach audiences.
Spider-Noir in action – Prime Video, YouTube
Now it’s finished after eight episodes.
The irony is that Spider-Noir managed something many of Sony’s previous Spider-Man-adjacent projects couldn’t: critics and audiences largely agreed that it was good.
Apparently that still wasn’t enough.
Amazon and Sony aren’t finished trying, however. Deadline reports that their partnership remains intact and another Marvel series is already nearing a potential greenlight. Whatever that project turns out to be, it will have an interesting act to follow.
Spider-Noir proved that audiences can embrace a Sony Marvel project without Peter Parker at its center. It just couldn’t convince Amazon that enough of those people were watching to make another season worth the money.
How do you feel about Spider-Noir being canceled? Sound off and let us know!
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