In the world of Prime Video’s Spider-Noir, the mythos of Spider-Man is turned on its ear, right down to Spidey’s infamous rogues’ gallery. The usual costumed crackpots and two-bit bruisers are reimagined as hard-boiled hoods, slick-talking racketeers, and underworld kingpins prowling the streets of 1930s New York. Here, every crook has an angle, every dame keeps a secret, and every alley looks like trouble waiting to happen.
In this hard-boiled version of Spider-Man, P.I. Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage) was once a vigilante who took up the moniker of The Spider before hanging up the mask after a devastating personal loss knocked the wind clean out of his sails. Now, he tends to finish more liquor bottles than cases. In addition to this new version of the webslinger, fans are also reintroduced to Flint Marko, the bruiser better known in other worlds and other stories as Sandman.
Previously brought to the big screen by Thomas Haden Church in several cinematic outings, the character gets a fresh shake here, reimagined for the series’ shadowy 1930s setting as his story slowly unfolds over the course of the season. Given an entirely new backstory, this version of Flint feels right at home among the series’ gallery of blending classic Spider-Man mythology with the smoky grit of a pulp crime picture.
Stepping into the shoes of Flint Marko is Jack Huston, who spoke to TV Insider about the role of Flint and the key to unlocking the complexities of the character.
In a world filled with hard-luck hoods trying to outrun their pasts, Huston explained that the audition itself became the roadmap for understanding Flint’s place in the story.
“I think the audition process was very much the sort of key,” said Huston. “When you’re going in there, it was finding the character that when we were cast, we actually had quite a bit of confidence in the direction we’d already taken. And that’s usually a specific scene that they wanted us to do when we read, and that very much felt like that was the key into the character.”
“It was sort of such a tragic, beautiful scene that I had to read,” explained Huston. “I don’t want to give anything away, but there was a lot more going on underneath that taught us that these were real, sort of beautiful, rather charming, tragic anti-heroes. So that was cool.”
Spider-Noir, First episode premiere on May 25 on MGM+; 8-episode drop on May 27 on Prime Video, available in both “Authentic Black & White” and “True Hue” color
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