Cage vs. Amazon: What an Actor's AI Waiver Actually Hands a Studio
Cage's Comic Con refusal played as a feud with Amazon. Read against the union contract, it shows what an actor keeps by not initialing one clause, and why most actors can't afford to.
In a New Yorker interview reported in July 2024, Nicolas Cage cut the conversation short "to go get a scan done for the show, and then also for the movie I'm doing after the show. Two scans in one day!" The show was "Spider-Noir." They "have to put me in a computer and match my eye color," he said, and he hoped what came next would not be AI: "God, I hope not AI. I'm terrified of that." Then the real question:
"I mean, what are you going to do with my body and my face when I'm dead? I don't want you to do anything with it!"
About 27 months later, on Saturday morning, Oct. 10, 2026, at a "Spotlight" panel at New York Comic Con, amid work on the film "Perish" (in Minneapolis, per The Hollywood Reporter), Cage told a New York Comic Con crowd that he had never signed. The crowd cheered, ComicBook.com 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! 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."
Nicolas Cage, actor, at New York Comic Con, Oct. 10, 2026, as transcribed by TheWrap
Post by @Variety
Variety posted video of the moment from the panel.
Most coverage stopped at that quote. The story is the document. Under the 2023 SAG-AFTRA contract in force while "Spider-Noir" was shot, the consent Cage most likely means is a separately initialed clause letting a producer create and use a digital replica of him, paid by the shooting days the studio estimates it saved, with a default that outlives the actor. Refusing is legal but can cost the job, and the 2026 union contract and California's AB 2602 have since tightened some terms.
The clause behind the word "waiver"
The contract's key term isn't "AI." It is the "Employment-Based Digital Replica," which the union's summary of the 2023 contract defines as a replica made "for the purpose of portraying the performer in photography or sound track in which the performer did not actually perform." In plain words: a scan made on the job that can show you doing things you never did on camera.
Making one requires "48-hour advance notice" and consent that "Must be clear and conspicuous," and "separately signed or initialed." That initialed consent is most likely what Cage means by "the waiver." No outlet has described Cage's actual page; this is how the contract works.
Use in the same picture needs consent that "Must include a reasonably specific description of the intended use," unless the footage "remains substantially as scripted, performed and/or recorded." Separately, digitally altering a performance for routine post-production purposes, such as cosmetics, continuity or noise reduction, needs no consent. Claims over digital alteration go to arbitration, with "Remedies limited to monetary damages": money, nothing more.
Paid for the days you didn't work
A performer gets the daily rate or the minimum, whichever is higher, "for the number of production days that Producer determines the performer would have been required to work" in person. The studio does the counting, and the check follows its estimate.
When the replica appears in a scene the actor actually shot, there may be nothing extra: no payment is required when "The digital replica is used in a scene in which the performer performed in person." For a star, that is a rounding error. For an actor near the minimum, it means an old scan can patch their own scenes without adding a dollar.
Then comes the sentence that answers Cage's 2024 question almost word for word: "Consent granted during a performer's lifetime continues after death unless explicitly limited otherwise." Set beside what Cage said on the day he was scanned for this show, it reads like a reply he never wanted. Unless someone writes a limit into the paperwork, a signature outlives the person who gave it.
A no that only some actors can afford
Actors can refuse. What it costs, the law firm DLA Piper spelled out in December 2023: "Nothing under the new agreement prohibits the use of SAG-AFTRA performances to train AI tools, nor does the new agreement prevent producers from requiring scans and replications as a condition of employment."
The contract guaranteed notice, a description, a signature and pay. It did not guarantee the job to anyone who said no. Cage is 62, an Oscar winner with a David O. Russell film on the way and, by his own account, a possible season of HBO's "True Detective." He can tell a studio no and add "that's okay" to applause. A day player booked for one scene usually cannot. If the waiver was that replica consent, his refusal kept control of his scanned face and body. Most working actors bargain for that control one signature at a time, if at all.
Amazon's $50 billion, and a cancellation with no stated link
Cage's jab rests on a real number. Amazon's $50 billion commitment to OpenAI, announced Feb. 27, 2026, starts "with an initial $15 billion investment" followed by "another $35 billion" once conditions are met. "Invested" means committed.
Amazon MGM Studios also set up an internal "AI Studio" led by Albert Cheng, Amazon's head of television, Reuters reported. Cheng told Reuters that "AI can accelerate, but it won't replace" what humans bring. "Accelerate" is what a replica clause does: a scan on file extends a performance without the performer.
A caveat: "Spider-Noir" was produced by Sony Pictures Television in association with Amazon MGM Studios. Cage named Amazon, but no outlet has established which company presented the waiver. Prime Video did not immediately respond to TheWrap, and as of Sunday morning, Oct. 11, none of the coverage carried a statement from Amazon or Sony.
Some fan sites and tabloids framed it as cancellation fallout, and ComicBook.com noted that some online called him "salty." Prime Video canceled the show on Friday, Sept. 4, 36 days before the panel and 102 days after its premiere. It was Cage's first lead TV role, a 1930s New York private eye, Ben Reilly / The Spider. It drew 11 Emmy nominations, the most of any Prime Video series in 2026, and won five, just days after it was canceled. The nominations didn't save it, a familiar story of streamers canceling shows after one season.
No evidence ties the refusal to that decision. Cage's September statement was gracious: "For me, one season is perfect, having said what I wanted to say with this dangerous, innovative, pop-art Spider-Man. Onwards, upwards, inwards." "Connect those dots" sits awkwardly beside that, and the gap should stay open.
The record is consistent. In 2023 he told Yahoo Entertainment that AI is "a nightmare" and "inhumane." On Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025, accepting best actor at the Saturn Awards while "Spider-Noir" was still filming, he went further:
"I am a big believer in not letting robots dream for us. Robots cannot reflect the human condition for us."
Nicolas Cage, actor, Saturn Awards, Feb. 2, 2025
What the 2026 rules changed
The 2023 agreement ran through June 30, 2026. Its successor, ratified June 4 and running through 2030, passed with 91.42%, up 13.09 points from 2023's 78.33%. Per The Hollywood Reporter, scans now need an "articulable business reason," and replicas can't be used during a strike in a way that would trigger a consent request. None of it reaches back to "Spider-Noir," shot while the 2023 terms were in force.
California's AB 2602, signed Sept. 17, 2024, makes a contract clause unenforceable, for performances fixed on or after Jan. 1, 2025, if it lets a replica stand in for work the performer would have done in person, lacks a "reasonably specific description of the intended uses" and was signed without a lawyer negotiating those rights or a union contract that expressly addresses replicas, the law firm Proskauer noted. Union actors get the bargained floor; the law mainly protects those who sign alone.
Side by side, per SAG-AFTRA, The Hollywood Reporter, the California governor's office and Proskauer:
| 2023 SAG-AFTRA contract (in force during the "Spider-Noir" shoot) | 2026 SAG-AFTRA contract (ratified June 4, 2026) | California AB 2602 (performances fixed from Jan. 1, 2025) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consent to a replica | Clear and conspicuous, separately signed or initialed | Builds on 2023 terms; scans need an "articulable business reason" | Clause unenforceable without a "reasonably specific description" and counsel or union representation |
| Description of use | "Reasonably specific description of the intended use" | Builds on 2023 terms | "Reasonably specific description of the intended uses" |
| After death | Consent continues "unless explicitly limited otherwise" | Not addressed in the reported summaries | Companion law AB 1836: estate consent for deceased performers' replicas |
| Pay | Daily rate for the days the replica replaces, as the producer estimates | Minimum payment and residuals for independently created replicas | No pay terms |
Performers can, per these texts, ask for a specific written description of each use, separate initials rather than boilerplate, an explicit limit after death, consent for other projects at the time of use, and, outside a union in California, counsel or AB 2602's protection.
Cage says he wants to work with "young directors who are Gen Z," the ones "doing it from scratch and by hand." He floated "True Detective," asking, "That's OK that I'm the first to announce that, right?" Yet "Madden," with Cage as John Madden, is scheduled to stream on Prime Video on Wednesday, Nov. 18, Variety reported. Done with that studio? Probably.
