Tuesday, February 10, 2026 |
|
|
This is not a drill: Nicolas Cage is about to play Spider-Man. It's real. It's happening. And Esquire has the exclusive first look at Cage as the web-slinger. This spring, Prime Video and MGM+ will debut the TV series Spider-Noir, which will star the Oscar-winning actor as a 1930s detective who also happens to wield superpowers. "For me, this character was 70 percent Bogart, and 30 percent Bugs Bunny," Cage told us of his take on Spidey. My only problem with this is that I can't watch it right now. Until then, you can (and should) read Anthony Breznican's first look at Spider-Noir below. —Brady Langmann, senior entertainment editor |
|
|
In this first look, Nicolas Cage plays a super-powered private eye who is lured into trouble by Li Jun Li's femme fatale.
|
The Nicolas Cage-starring TV show, which will air this spring on MGM+ and stream on Prime Video, will be presented in black and white that mimics the monochromatic look of 1940s crime classics. But it also will be shown in a version that looks more like the colorful panels of the Marvel Comics that serve as its inspiration. For this exclusive first look at the show, Esquire is also displaying both formats at once. In this story, we display the full-color version, and speak to showrunner Oren Uziel and producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller about all the different ways they've taken Spider-Man's Marvel Universe and refurbished it as a 1930s detective tale. The other half of this first look is our interview with Cage, where you can see how Spider-Noir looks in luminous grayscale. |
|
|
Presidents' Day sales are upon us, so think hard for a moment about what you actually need to buy. All the flashy promos flooding your inbox make it easy to forget the practical items you might already have on your list: fresh running shoes, a lightweight jacket for spring, and maybe a tech upgrade or two. After digging through hundreds of sales, we narrowed down the 15 places you should be shopping.
Many of our favorite clothing brands are offering end-of-season sales, which we've rounded up here. You'll find standout deals below from editor favorites like Patagonia, Vuori, and Hoka. We've also highlighted some of the best discounts on furniture and home decor at retailers like Amazon, Article, and Wayfair. Best of all, we secured you an Esquire-exclusive Saatva mattress discount. |
|
|
The most salacious story out of the Winter Olympics is allegations that ski jumpers are using penis fillers to increase their size, necessitating bigger suits and generating more lift. (Yes, lift.) This is only possible because we're living in a golden era of body modification. Want more testosterone? Pay a visit to your local med spa. Craving thicker hair on your head? There's a pill for that. Squarer jawline? Fuller calves? Surgeries for both have increased in the past few years. Even the penis can be customized these days. You can make it longer, harder, wider. You can even inject it with fillers, like what people put in their cheeks to make them plumper.
Naturally, athletes are using penis modifications to try to get a competitive advantage. But many men are turning to them for a much more obvious reason. For our series The Secret Lives of Men, we interviewed Rick (a pseudonym), a cybersecurity CEO from Alabama. He underwent the PhalloFILL procedure in 2023. He says the pain was worth it. Evidently, sex with his wife of almost 30 years has never been better. |
|
|
 Being a fly on the wall should come naturally to your average private-eye. But being a literal wall-crawler? That's something new. This is what distinguishes Nicolas Cage's Spider-Noir hero from the other iconic gumshoes who populate our pop culture—but he's also starkly different from any other Spider-Man who has swung across our paths. Cage makes his TV debut in the series, which Prime Video will stream later this spring. He originally voiced the alt-universe anti-hero in 2018's Into the Spider-Verse, but even that version of the gravel-voiced anti-hero is different from the one in the new show. Cage is playing Ben Reilly this time, not Peter Parker. In Marvel comics lore, Ben was a genetic clone of Parker's; in Spider-Noir, Cage performed Ben more like a clone of Humphrey Bogart. "For me, this character was 70 percent Bogart, and 30 percent Bugs Bunny," Cage tells Esquire in this first of two separate Spider-Noir first looks. "I was basically Mel Blanc doing Bogart, with that sarcastic sense of humor. But it's a hundred percent me." Below you will see an array of new images from the series, accompanied by our exclusive chat with the star. Over at this full-color first look at the series, you can see how the images look in their alternate form, since the streaming service will give viewers the option of seeing it either way. In that article, the creators explain how they reworked the Marvel Comics universe of Spider-Man as a streetwise Depression-era mystery. Esquire speaks to co-showrunner Oren Uziel, as well as producers Chris Miller and Phil Lord, who oversaw the Spider-Verse movies and are best known for directing The Lego Movie. They revealed the surprising detail Cage shared with them about his Spider-Noir performance. "His take on it was like, 'I'm a spider trying to cosplay as a human,'" Lord says. But first up, Cage himself gets to have his say about mimicking film noir, starring in his first-ever TV show, and the way the show feels different when seen in color vs. black and white. |
|
|
Nicolas Cage in Spider-Noir / photo by: Amazon Prime Video |
Nowadays, you can't even watch the Super Bowl halftime show without hearing the President rant on social media about how nothing fun represents real America anymore. Over 100 million viewers and counting watched Bad Bunny's halftime show, while a much smaller contingent tuned in to Turning Point USA's "All-American" halftime show instead. I loved Bad Bunny's performance, despite Trump's mad ramblings, but what did you make of all this halftime show hubbub? Let me know how the two shows affected your Super Bowl this year (if at all!) by writing me a note at josh.rosenberg@hearst.com. Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here. |
The Continuing Adventures of the Esquire Entertainment Desk |
Jason Alexander told Eric Francisco how Dunkin' pulled off its '90s-charged Super Bowl commercial. "God bless them, they got me back to my thirties," the Seinfeld legend says about the ad's de-aging process. Read the interview here. Read an excerpt from Stephen King and the late Peter Straub's new novel, Other Worlds Than These. The long-awaited Talisman trilogy-capper is now complete and set for release this October. You can read the first exclusive except here. Taxi Driver is 50 years old. Can you believe it? Anthony Breznican paid tribute to the Martin Scorsese-directed classic that polarized critics by returning to their initial reviews of the film. Read about the anniversary here. |
|
|
Bad Bunny performing at the Super Bowl LX halftime show / photo by: San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers |
|
|
The Cliff-Hanger's Winners and Losers of the Week |
Winner: Everyone Invited to Bad Bunny's La Casita Bad Bunny's "little house," which has been a celebrity fixture of the Spanish-language singer's tour all year, featured A-list Latin talent at this year's Super Bowl. I spotted actors Pedro Pascal and Jessica Alba, rappers Cardi B, Karol G, and Young Miko, and MLB player Ronald Acuña Jr. You're all winners this week! Props for vibing better than Austin Butler when he visited La Casita. Loser: Jake Paul The former Youtuber and "professional" boxer called Bad Bunny "a fake American citizen" on social media. Many critics, including Paul's brother, Logan, chimed in to remind Jake that Puerto Rico is an American territory. Paul should know—he moved there in 2021. Winner: Silly Olympics Terminology I love when the Olympic figure skating commentators say things like, "I'm not sure if that was enough rotations. It's possible his twizzle got invalidated." Damn, don't you just hate it when your twizzle gets invalidated? Loser: The AI Svedka Commercial More Super Bowl commercials were made by AI than you thought this year, but one trainwreck of an ad was glaringly obvious. Yes, I'm talking about the Svedka commercial that featured creepy robots who drank so much vodka that they short circuited. According to The Verge, using AI didn't even save the company money or time. So, you're telling me that they wanted the commercial to sell the idea that their drink was harmful to consume? Winner: Bryce Bennett For a wholesome end to this week's Cliff-Hanger, watch this video of Team USA alpine skier Bryce Bennett breaking down in tears during his post-race interview. Though the three-time Olympian didn't earn a medal this time, he thanks his family for everything they've sacrificed to support him over the years. Milan-Cortina 2026 is Bennett's final Olympic showing. You can tell it still meant the world to him to compete. |
|
|
|
|
|
