Spice World (film)

Development

As the popularity of the Spice Girls grew, The Walt Disney Company approached the band about making a film. The band turned down Disney's offer as they did not like the "Disney-fied" script, which was about "a young single mother of one of the girls, fighting hardship to form the band."^[10] Kim Fuller, brother of the band's manager Simon Fuller, decided to write the screenplay for a Spice Girls movie himself.^[10]

According to Fuller, the script had to be revised many times to accommodate the growing number of celebrities hoping to take part in the film.^[10] Director Bob Spiers had been working in America on the Disney film That Darn Cat at the peak of the Girls' popularity. He was unaware of the group when first offered the job until his friend Jennifer Saunders advised that he take it. He arrived at a meeting with them in a New York hotel, unaware of what they looked like.^[11]

Casting

Frank Bruno was originally cast as the tour bus driver, but withdrew after a security guard prevented his son Franklin having an on-set photo taken with the girls. Mentions of Princess Diana and scenes featuring the designer Gianni Versace had to be edited out in post-production following their deaths shortly before the release of the film.^[12]

"Their company rang me up and asked if I would be in it", remarked Elvis Costello of his cameo appearance. "I wouldn't have thought I was the kind of face you would get to do a cornflakes advert. Maybe twenty years ago. I was surprised."^[13]

Filming

Spice World began filming in June and wrapped in August 1997.^[15] The film was to be set to the songs from the Girls' second studio album, but no songs had been written when filming began. The band thus had to do all the songwriting and recording at the same time as they were filming Spice World.^[16]

Music

An official motion picture soundtrack was not released. Their second studio album, Spiceworld (1997), was heavily promoted and served as the film's soundtrack. The only song from Spiceworld not to appear in the film is "Move Over". The songs appearing in the film are in order of appearance.

"Too Much" was released in part to promote the film, and debuted atop the UK Singles Chart,^[17] becoming the Spice Girls' second consecutive Christmas number-one single.^[18] It made the group the first act to reach number one with their first six singles, and the first to debut atop the chart five times in a row.^[19] The single spent two weeks at number one,^[20] and was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on 9 January 1998.^[18]

Rating

In the United Kingdom, Spice World was granted a PG certificate by the British Board of Film Classification for "mild bad language, mild sex references".^[1] In the United States, it received a PG rating from the Motion Picture Association for "some vulgarity, brief nudity and language".

Merchandising

Official toy versions of the Spice Bus were produced upon the release of the film.^[21]

Home media

The film was released on VHS in May 1998 in many regions including the UK, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Japan and Australia. In June 1998, it came out on VHS in the US and Canada. Despite concerns that the high-profile departure of Halliwell from the Spice Girls would affect sales, global demand for the VHS was high.^[22] In the UK, the film was number one on the video charts for six consecutive weeks,^[23] was certified 11× Platinum, and became the ninth best-selling video of 1998.^[24] In the US, the film peaked at number one on the video charts for five consecutive weeks^[25] and was the fifth best-selling video of 1998.^[26]

Spice World: The 10th Anniversary Edition was released on DVD on 19 November 2007 in the United Kingdom and Australia and on 27 November 2007 in the United States.

Spice World: The 20th Anniversary Edition was released on DVD on 7 February 2018 in Australia.^[27]

2017 re-release

In 2017, the film was screened at various cinemas in the UK, Ireland and Australia to mark its 20th anniversary.^[5]

Box office

Spice World was a number-one box office success in the United Kingdom, grossing £2.3 million during its opening weekend on Boxing Day 1997. It was the highest opening gross for a British production in the UK, surpassing the record set earlier in the year by Bean (excluding previews for Bean)^[28] and also set a record opening week gross for a British film in the U.K. with a gross of £4.8 million.^[29] The film was also successful in the United States, breaking the record at that time for the highest-ever weekend debut for Super Bowl weekend (25 January 1998), with box office sales of $10,527,222.^[30] The film took in $56 million at the box office worldwide,^[4] though media articles have referred to a higher figure of $100 million after DVD sales were included.

Critical reception

The film received generally negative reviews from critics. Film review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gave Spice World a rating of 35% based on reviews from 69 critics, with an average rating of 4.7 out of 10 and a critic consensus that reads "Spice World's lack of cohesive plot will likely lose most viewers, but for fans of the titular girl group there's more than enough fun to be had in their wacky -- albeit superficial -- whirlwind of an adventure."^[31] On Metacritic, the film has a 32 out of 100 rating, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".^[32]

Noted American film critic Roger Ebert gave one-half of a star and listed Spice World as one of his most hated films, saying: "The Spice Girls are easier to tell apart than the Mutant Ninja Turtles, but that is small consolation: What can you say about five women whose principal distinguishing characteristic is that they have different names? They occupy Spice World as if they were watching it: They're so detached they can't even successfully lip-synch their own songs." And when he reviewed the film on his and Gene Siskel's film critique programme Siskel & Ebert, only three weeks into 1998, he declared that he had already seen the worst film of that year, and called it "an entertainment-free dead zone". Ebert included the film on the Worst of 1998 special, but he chose Armageddon as the worst film of 1998.^[33][34]

Janet Maslin of The New York Times stated that the film "is pleasant and painless enough to amuse ardent fans, who figure in the film quite often." She also noted that while it got a PG rating in the United States, "nothing about it should disturb its target audience of media-wise, fun-loving 8-year-old girls."^[35] Writing for Sight and Sound, in a positive review, Mark Sinker placed it alongside the Monkees' 1968 cult film Head. He went on to say that it "sends up the amiable idiocy of pop packaging - and the slow witted mass-media response to it" and it was "tirelessly generous in its energy".^[36]

Derek Elley, resident film critic for Variety, gave a mixed review, calling the film "bright and breezy" and "as timely but evanescent as the Cool Britannia culture it celebrates". He stated that the film would "delight the Fab Five's pre-pubescent fans" but that it would "be forgotten within six months".^[37]

Reappraisal

Several critics have reevaluated the film more positively in the years after its initial release. Re-watching Spice World in 2019, Alice Vincent of The Daily Telegraph was "pleasantly surprised" that the jokes had not aged badly and found the sets and costuming had a "now-retro charm". Vincent stated: "It's an irreverent, lighthearted romp that captured the brash, patriotic positivity of a London swept up in Cool Britannia."^[38] Writing for The New York Times in 2019, Eleanor Stanford found the film to be "much smarter and more self-aware than I once gave it credit for," particularly enjoying how the Spice Girls poked fun at themselves. Stanford concluded: "The Spice Girls were absolutely working the (very sexist) system, and making a lot of money off it, but they were doing it slyly, with a wink and a grin. They were, I think, misunderstood at the time, and I wonder if an irreverent, breezy group like theirs could even exist today."^[39]

Accolades

The film has been listed in Golden Raspberry Awards founder John Wilson's book The Official Razzie Movie Guide as one of "The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made".^[40] Along with the nominations and wins racked up at the 1998 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, Spice World was listed in their upcoming "100 Years, 100 Stinkers" list, in which people voted for the 100 worst movies of the 20th century. The film was ranked at #5.^[41][42]