Prime Video’s New Spider-Man Series Is Officially A Comedy Despite Neo-Noir Crime Elements

The live-action Spider-Noir TV show, led by Nicolas Cage as the iconic web-crawler, is only a month out from its premiere, but it turns out that the superhero series is being looked at by Sony Pictures Television and Amazon for a very different, unexpected category. According to Variety in their Awards Circuit edition, the Marvel adventure is categorized as a comedy, with the trade listing it as one of the predicted choices for the Emmys.

The trade reports it as one of the expected comedy series nominees, joining ABC’s Abbott Elementary, Apple TV’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles and Shrinking, HBO Max’s Hacks and The Comeback, Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, and Netflix’s Nobody Wants This. The upcoming Prime Video show with Cage has Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot, while Spider-Verse’s Phil Lord and Christopher Miller serve as executive producers.

The nomination-round voting will take place between June 11 and 22, before they are announced on July 8. The final voting will then take place from August 17–26, before leading into the Creative Arts Awards and Governors Gala that is scheduled for September 5–6, as the Emmy Awards ceremony will then air on September 14 on NBC.

Spider-Noir’s Best Comedy Consideration Sparks A Long-Running Debate At Award Shows

The Spider-Noir TV show, being categorized under comedy, continues one of the biggest debates going on in Hollywood for awards and how studios are strategizing their submissions when a series is actually a drama. Cage’s superhero adaptation is confirmed to focus on Ben Reily, instead of Peter Parker, who is described by Prime Video as “an aging and down on his luck private investigator in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life as the city’s one and only superhero.” In this iteration, he is not even going by Spider-Man, but rather as The Spider.

The Spider-Noir cast also includes players who make this more of a drama rather than a comedy, as Marvel’s Tombstone, Sandman, and Silvermane will be villains used throughout the series. The first trailer for the Marvel TV show is also framing it as a very intense neo-noir crime project that may have its fair share of comedic moments, but not enough where it shouldn’t be regarded as a drama. This is also not the first superhero television property to get this specific categorization.

Marvel Studios’ Wonder Man, which was recently picked up for season 2 at Disney+, is also getting the comedy category treatment by Disney ahead of the Emmy Awards season. In November 2024, it was revealed by Variety that the same happened for Agatha All Along, as the studio submitted it as a comedy series.

Spider-Noir is scheduled to premiere domestically on May 25 on MGM+, before the entire season is released worldwide on Prime Video as of May 27. The Marvel drama will be available in both black and white, as well as in color.