Nicolas Cage Says He Turned Down Amazon's AI Waiver and Is Probably Done There

The 'Spider-Noir' star told a New York Comic Con panel that Amazon is 'AI-friendly' and he isn't.

Nicolas Cage told a New York Comic Con crowd Saturday that he wouldn't sign Amazon's AI waiver for "Spider-Noir," and doesn't expect to work there again.

Onstage at a spotlight panel at the Javits Center, Cage laid it out, TheWrap reported: "Amazon is a very AI-friendly company, to the tune of $50 billion invested in OpenAI. I am not an AI-friendly actor, so it's like, connect those dots!" The room cheered, according to ComicBook.com, and by Saturday afternoon a post about the remarks sat at No. 1 on Reddit's r/popular feed.

Then came the part that made it a story instead of a sound bite. "I'm probably not going to be working with that studio again, but that's okay," he said. A movie star turned down AI terms, then named the likely bill out loud and shrugged at it.

The show in question already had a sad ending. Cage played Ben Reilly, a.k.a. The Spider, and Prime Video canceled the series last month after one season, days before it landed 11 Emmy nominations, TheWrap reported. Viewers streamed 2.6 billion minutes of it over the first six weeks. Amazon pointed to the budget, ComicBook.com reported.

At the time, Cage sounded serene. In a statement after the cancellation, he said one season suited him fine, since he'd said what he wanted to say with his pop-art Spider-Man. Saturday's version had more edge.

He didn't say the waiver had anything to do with the cancellation. "Connect those dots" left fans to do the connecting anyway. Most reactions online cheered what they saw as artistic integrity, ComicBook.com reported, while a smaller camp argued he's just sore about losing the show.

Prime Video didn't immediately answer when TheWrap asked for comment. The company hasn't been shy about the technology, though: Reuters reported in February that Amazon built an in-house "AI Studio," run by executive Albert Cheng, to speed up production and cut costs, ComicBook.com noted, alongside Amazon's insistence that generative AI won't replace actors or writers.

The noir Spider-Man isn't finished with him, either. Cage is set to return to the character in animated form in "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse," due in 2027, Soapcentral noted.

And he's already eyeing another door. Telling the crowd his agent was probably listening, Cage said he planned another season of television: "I think I might do a season of 'True Detective.'" HBO declined to comment on the casting, TheWrap reported.

Source: TheWrap, retrieved October 10, 2026. Other sources: comicbook.com, soapcentral.com.