Nicolas Cage refuses Amazon's AI waiver on 'Spider-Noir'

Nicolas Cage told a New York Comic Con 'Spotlight' panel on Saturday that he refused to sign the AI waiver Amazon handed him on the Prime Video series 'Spider-Noir,' and does not expect to be hired by the studio again.

'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!' Cage said, in remarks reported by Variety. 'I'm not a member of their club. I didn't sign the waiver to let them use AI on "Spider Noir." I'm probably not going to be working with that studio again, but that's okay.'

Cage did not describe what the waiver would have authorized, did not invoke SAG-AFTRA, and did not name any Amazon executive. The $50 billion OpenAI figure is his own characterization; he offered no source for it. Amazon has not publicly responded.

'Spider-Noir,' in which Cage played Ben Reilly/The Spider, was canceled after one season by Amazon MGM Studios, according to The Wrap, despite drawing 11 Emmy nominations and 2.6 billion minutes viewed in its first six weeks on Prime Video.

It lands in a busy run: 59 Amazon-tagged items have moved through our tracker in the last 90 days, most of them about the company buying further into AI rather than clashing with talent over it.