How they made Spidey 3 (aka Too many cooks...)

Once upon a time there was a movie called Spiderman... Kids loved him, girls swooned after him and guys came in to see the action. It was a beautiful movie about a lost guy who finds the girl of his dreams but looses a lot along his way.

The movie was made by a guy called Sam Raimi.. critically acclaimed in top magazines and on having been a hair's length away from the Oscar for his masterpiece called Evil Dead, the guy needed a break.. He cracked it with Spidey 1 and managed to repeat it with Spidey 2, albeit sounding a bit too repetitive.. anyways he had all the makings of creating a franchise. Spidey had his own trademarked water bottles, school bags and even condoms with the tagline "As strong as a spidey web"

Flush from the success of these versions were also the superhero himself - Toby Mcquire (hope i spelt him right) and Mary Jane - Kirsten "I always cry" Dunst. As long as the kids, moms and teens loved the webbed guy, our dear corporate honchos were laughing their way to the bank.

However once Spidey 2 was over, our dear friends at Sony realized that the project has to be run more professionally. To increase returns, they must increase investment. However the risks must be mitigated too. They recruited a couple of MBAs from top business schools, a consulting company specializing in ROI maximization and a marketing executive specializing in merchandizing and in-movie product placements. Oh by the way.. with watever was left, they managed to hire a scriptwriter.

The MBAs got to work. Flush with learnings from Stephen Covey and Jack Welch, they decided to conduct a worldwide survey on what consumers need from Spidey 3. Top market research firms were hired for the job. 40% wanted Sandman, 35% wanted venom and 20% wanted green goblin. However the data was inconclusive because it couldnt measure the "Will definitely watch" criteria if any one of the villains were there. The scriptwriter was asked to develop 3 scripts with each villain. One member of top management liked version 1, the other liked version 2. Hence the board decided to combine all 3 scripts and have all 3 villains.

The weakening dollar rate forced the MBAs to look at other countries as singificant future revenue forecast sources. They realized that Indians like song and dance, so they made Kirsten Dunst sing and Toby dance. Each element was forecasted to increase revenues by $ 1 Million from India. They also had a sequence with Kirsten & Toby running around a tree while Green Goblin sings a song composed by Anu Malik in true Devdas style. However the sequence was removed at the last moment because of technical difficulties.


The consultants measured every line in the script to check whether it met predefined success criteria or had a potential of generating incremental revenue for Sony. Each line was put into a complex framework (the 4B framework - Bullshit, Bastardize, Babble and Bombard) to measure the "Strategic Return on Investment score" for the line. Based on these, the scripts were reframed, rearticulated and even removed to fit to the model.

The product placement manager got contracts from millions of firms, So you have toby eat burger king burgers,wear Brand X Y and Z irrespective of the fact that he is very poor. Plans were to brand the spidey suit with logos of Nike, Coca Cola and MTV. Product managers found the equity fit just right. If you look carefully at the spidey suit , you can see the branding.

The corporate managers got the final movie script, after weeks of intellectualization and careful tactical calculation by the highly paid MBAs and the consultants. Everyone had whatever they liked. They looked at the key success criteria: Action, comedy, singing heroine, senti scenes, 3 villains, romance, running around trees, Veeru & Jai and special effects. They ticked the checkboxes with glee, the movie had it all! it was gonna be the biggest release for Sony in this century.

The launch was released with all the necessary and unnecessary hype. Sony decided to test market the movie in Asia first and then decide on the right marketing mix model before launching in the US. Yet another marketing breakthrough from the corporate honchos of the media companies...

What has happened is definitely worth seeing.... especially for us "strategic managers" who tend to look at everything at the end of an excel sheet as the word of God. Spidey 3 is definitely a must watch guys,, and not for the script....

All incidences in the storyline are purely fictional from the imagination of a disgruntled author who watched the movie first day first show. However the author is quite sure that what could have happened could be very similar to what was mentioned here...

If anyone knows Stan Lee, please tell him not to watch the movie. He is an old guy, God knows if he will be able to handle it...