Spider-Noir cancelled after one season despite Emmy nods and a $400M price tag
Amazon has cancelled Spider-Noir after a single eight-episode season, per Deadline. The show earned 11 Emmy nominations — the most of any Prime Video series this year — along with a 92% critics score and 90% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. None of that was enough to greenlight a second season.
The bill
The series cost an estimated $400 million to produce. A significant chunk of that came from an unexpected source: after the show was originally edited in black and white, the studio pushed for a colour version during post-production. That decision triggered roughly a year of reshoots and colour-grading work, ballooning the budget well beyond initial projections.
Despite pulling in 2.6 billion viewing minutes in its first six weeks on US charts — peaking at No. 2 on Nielsen's streaming rankings in its debut week — the show dropped out of the Prime Video top 10 relatively quickly. Viewership was heavily front-loaded, which raised questions about whether the audience was large enough, or sustained enough, to justify the spend.
The pedigree that didn't save it
Spider-Noir marked Nicolas Cage's first regular TV role. The series was developed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the Oscar-winning duo behind Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and directed by Harry Bradbeer, who won an Emmy for Fleabag. Set during the Great Depression, it followed Ben Reilly — a down-on-his-luck private detective who happens to be the city's only superhero — as he confronts his past.
TheWrap confirmed the full season had wrapped production before the cancellation decision was made.
What comes next
The cancellation does not end the broader Amazon–Sony TV partnership. The two companies hold a licensing deal covering more than 900 Marvel characters, and at least one new series is reportedly close to receiving a production greenlight. Amazon's bet on Marvel IP isn't over — it's just getting more careful about what it spends.
The Spider-Noir situation is a clean case study in streaming economics: critical prestige and award recognition no longer guarantee renewal when the budget is this large and the sustained viewership isn't there to match.
