10 Fascinating Insights Into Spice World

In 1996, the Spice Girls made a global impact with their smash hit 'Wannabe' from their debut album, 'Spice.' Their empowering message of 'Girl Power' encouraged a generation of women to 'Spice Up Your Life.' With 31 million copies of *Spice* flying off the shelves worldwide, it was only natural that the next step would be a movie. On January 23, 1998, Columbia Pictures brought *Spice World* to cinemas across the United States.

In their cinematic debut, the Spice Girls—Melanie Brown (Scary Spice), Melanie Chisholm (Sporty Spice), Emma Bunton (Baby Spice), Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice), and Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice)—portrayed over-the-top versions of themselves. The film's storyline followed the group as they prepared for their biggest performance yet at London's Royal Albert Hall, while being stalked by a tabloid journalist. Meanwhile, their best friend was going into labor, and Ginger Spice had an unexpected encounter with an alien.

Director Bob Spiers invited a slew of British celebrities to make cameo appearances, including Roger Moore, Bob Hoskins, Elvis Costello, Jennifer Saunders, and Elton John. The Spice Girls' fame reached such heights that even Prince Charles and his sons, Princes William and Harry, were present at the *Spice World* premiere.

The film, with a $25 million budget, raked in a strong $100 million globally, despite Roger Ebert's harsh half-star review, where he wrote that the Spice Girls were 'so detached they can’t even successfully lip-sync their own songs.'

*Spice World* earned seven Razzies and took home one for Worst Actress, a title shared by all five Spice Girls. In a 2007 UK poll, it was crowned the 'worst film ever made.' Yet, over time, the movie has found its audience. *Esquire* even argued that it was superior to The Beatles' *A Hard Day's Night*, and the podcast *How Did This Get Made?* devoted more than an hour discussing the film's outlandish plot.

Even though the world's top-selling girl group disbanded in 2000, *Spice World* remains a lasting symbol of Spice Mania. On its 20th anniversary, here are 10 intriguing facts about the movie.

1. IT TOOK JUST A YEAR FROM CONCEPT TO COMPLETION.

Barnaby Thompson, one of the producers behind the film, co-founded a production company with Uri Fruchtmann, who was married to Annie Lennox at the time. Lennox and the Spice Girls were both managed by Simon Fuller. During a lunch meeting, Fuller, Fruchtmann, Thompson, and Fuller’s brother Kim decided to make the movie. 'We completed it within a year of that lunch,' Thompson told *The Telegraph*. 'That lunch took place on November 1, 1996, and we delivered the finished film exactly a year later, on November 1, 1997.'

2. THE GIRLS STOPPED TRAFFIC IN FRANCE.

By May 1997, the Spice Girls had already claimed four number-one hits in the UK, making them one of the most popular music groups in the world. To build excitement for *Spice World*, the producers took the group to the Cannes Film Festival, even though filming hadn’t yet begun. 'We put out a photo call notice,' said publicist Dennis Davidson. 'The traffic on the Croisette came to a halt, the crowd was screaming, people were hanging out of windows—it was absolute chaos.' An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 people showed up to see the pop icons. Filming took place around London between June and August 1997.

3. RICHARD E. GRANT’S DAUGHTER MADE HIM DO THE MOVIE.

Richard E. Grant’s 9-year-old daughter was a huge Spice Girls fan, and when he was offered the role of the Girls’ manager, Clifford, she insisted he take it, despite his doubts about 'my acting credibility.' 'And she’d say, ‘No, no, you have to. You have to because I want to meet them,’' Grant told *Vulture* in 2014. 'So I did, and she was over the moon. I had playground street cred for about two semesters, but then, of course, it flipped when they started saying, ‘No, I was never a Spice Girls fan!’ Now, that generation has come full circle, saying, ‘Yeah, we love the Spice Girls!’'

4. SHAKESPEARE HELPED CAST ALAN CUMMING.

Alan Cumming portrayed a paparazzo-like character named Piers Cuthbertson-Smyth in *Spice World*. Ginger Spice was the one who recommended him to the casting team. 'I remember seeing Alan Cumming performing as Hamlet [at the Donmar Warehouse],' she told *The Telegraph*. 'When it came time for *Spice World* casting years later, I was going through the pictures and thought, 'Let’s pick him, I saw him in *Hamlet*.' It was amazing to have such talented actors in our silly movie.'

5. YOU CAN VISIT THE SPICE BUS.

The 1978 British Leyland Bristol VRTSL3 double-decker bus, adorned with the Union Jack on the outside and a swing inside, made its first appearance in the film. While the bus met its explosive end in the movie, it was spared in reality. After filming wrapped, the bus fell into disrepair until the *Island Harbour Marina* on the Isle of Wight bought and restored it to its original glory. In July 2014, it was put on permanent display. The only thing missing is Meat Loaf behind the wheel.

6. *WITHNAIL AND I* CONVINCED ELVIS COSTELLO TO MAKE A CAMEO.

In an interview with *The A.V. Club*, Elvis Costello shared his admiration for Richard E. Grant’s film *Withnail and I*. 'You know, I thought, ‘If I go to IMDb, I’m only a couple of clicks away from *Withnail*!’,' he said. Costello, who played a barman in the film, called his role 'ironic.' 'I’d only quit drinking a couple of years before, so the idea of playing a barman seemed a bit ironic to me.'

7. THE PRODUCTION MADE SURE THE GIRLS DIDN’T READ THE SCRIPT.

Kim Fuller penned the script (with additional writing by Jamie Curtis), which was initially titled *Five*. He anticipated that the Girls might not enjoy the script, or perhaps not read it at all. To ensure they were on board, he gathered them in a London hotel. 'I went in and said, ‘Look, turn your phones off, this is serious. I’m going to read you the story,’' he recalled.

The Girls were on board with the story, and Ginger Spice even contributed script ideas while she was in Bali. 'I spent hours on the phone trying to sort it all out and make sure it was right,' she said. 'By the time we started filming, it was nearly perfect.'

8. BUT THEY DIDN’T STICK TO THE SCRIPT.

Fuller mentioned that he gave the Girls new pages from the script daily, followed by rehearsals. 'You had to catch them at the right moment, when the energy was high,' Fuller explained. 'They’re not going to do 20 takes of a single line, so you had to think on your feet.' In the *Spice World* documentary, Mel B admitted that she and the other Girls added their own flair to the script. 'We contributed our own little sparkle,' she said. 'Sometimes we'd deliberately say the lines wrong just to make ourselves laugh,' Baby Spice added. But those improvisations almost caused the script supervisor to quit.

'The script lady went berserk and nearly quit because we kept changing everything,' Fuller told *The Telegraph*. 'There were a lot of flowers involved, and we consoled her for a while, and everything was fine after that.'

9. THE GIRLS RECORDED AN ALBUM WHILE FILMING.

Their debut album was such a massive success that they needed to record their second album quickly to maintain the momentum. To juggle both filming *Spice World* and recording *Spiceworld* (one word), the team set up a mobile studio on set. Some of the album’s tracks—and even songs for the movie—were written during the production.

'It was quite fun doing the album while making the film because we were always so full of energy after a day of shooting, and we could just go into the mobile studio and feed off each other,' Posh told *The Telegraph*. They filmed during the day and recorded at night. Virgin Records released the album on November 3, 1997, and many of the songs from *Spiceworld* made it into the movie, creating an unofficial soundtrack of sorts.

10. MEL C LOVES THE MOVIE.

Mel C shared with *The Telegraph* that she initially found it tough to watch the film, but when her daughter and friends insisted on watching it at a birthday party, she changed her mind. 'I sat down with them and actually really enjoyed it,' she said. 'I laughed out loud. It brought back so many memories, and I think enough time has passed for me to watch myself. In a way, it’s brilliant. It’s very tongue-in-cheek, very silly. What I realized is that there was so much of us in it. It was very, very real.'