Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 415
5th International Symposium on Social Science (ISSS 2019)
Study on the Transmedia Storytelling Practice of “Spider-Man”
Chang Meng
Shanghai Film Academy, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200072, China
[email protected]Abstract. From perspective of transmedia storytelling case practice, the derivative creation of
“Spider-Man” series films is considered as the main research subject. From the aspects of official
creation and fans’ derivative works, the transmedia storytelling practice is summarized as two
typical modes: the film-and-game interacting mode usually dominated by the authorities, and the
“fans culture” creating works mode mostly participated by fans of films.
Keywords: transmedia storytelling, “fans culture”, fan works, “Spider-Man”
1. Introduction
Henry Jenkins(2009) described transmedia storytelling industry practice with seven principles:
Extensibility, drillability, unity, diversity, immersion, abstraction, world construction, continuity,
subjectivity and user performance. In the transmedia storytelling industry practice, comics and
novels are often used as original works to provide the world view and background settings of the
whole story so as to construct the world. With strong publicity and high artistic level, films can
show all kinds of details and improve the extensibility and drillability. With a long duration and
wide dissemination, the TV series can explore the highlights of characters, extend the vitality of the
story, and provide the possibility of diversity while maintaining unity. The highly interactive nature
of the game can give the player the pleasure of immersive experience, making it truly fully
integrated into the whole story. This process reflects continuity and subjectivity, and maximizes
immersion and abstraction.
2. Films and Games
Jenkins emphasizes in his book: "There is a strong economic motive behind the transmedia
storytelling. Media convergence makes the flow of content across multiple media platforms
inevitable. In an era when digital effects and high-resolution game graphics have become
mainstream, the game world and the film world have become remarkably similar -- they are reusing
the digital resources of the film world. The structure of the modern entertainment industry is
designed with a simple concept -- to build and strengthen the entertainment product system." Under
the trend of adaptation between films and games, they have become two engines worthy of
recognition in the transmedia storytelling convergence trend of the entertainment industry.
As is known to all, the first “Spider-Man” film premiered on May 3, 2002, achieving an
unprecedented success. But what few people know is that the game of the same name “Spider-Man:
the movie” went on sale on April 15, half a month ahead the film's release. The game producer is
Activision, a famous third-party video game producer and publisher in the United States. Before
that, an action game named “Spider-Man” had launched on September 17, 2001. Then with the
release of the films "Spider-Man 2" and "Spider-Man 3", the company released the Games
meanwhile. Even after the end of the old "Spider-Man" series, the game production has not stopped.
At an average annual rate, they has successively launched “Spider-Man: Friend or Foe”,
“Spider-Man: Web Of Shadows”, “Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions” and “Spider-Man: Edge of
Time”. Until 2012, Sony Pictures restarted the "Spider-Man" series with the film "The Amazing
Spider-Man”, so Activision released the game of the same name at the same time. After the
cooperation with Sony was strengthened, the game was no longer limited to the computer platform,
but boarded the PS3 Game Platform developed by Sony. Afterwards, when the shooting plan of
"The Amazing Spider-Man” was put aside, Activision seemed to have forgotten the development
of the series games. Until July 1, 2017, it released VR game "Spider-Man: Homecoming" to the
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market to preheat the release of film. From the game to the movie, and then from the movie to the
game, there has been a cycle of 15 years. As Mike Antonucci of the San Jose Mercury News
commented: "Transmedia storytelling is not necessarily 'smart storytelling', but it's really 'smart
marketing'."
Game development belongs to franchise products of films, and is different from the general
sense of derivative (plastic toys authorized to sold by McDonald's, etc.). The reason why it can be
regarded as an important part of transmedia storytelling is that it can mobilize players to supplement
the film narrative spontaneously. Through the propaganda and introduction of "Spider-Man" series
of games, it has always been closely linked to the core concept of “playing Spider-Man". Even in
“Spider-Man: Edge of Time”, players alternate between the common Spider-man and Spider-man
2099. Here, the concept of Marvel sharing universe is introduced, breaking through the time limit of
the movie. The characters are no longer limited to one specific “Spider-Man”, instead the game give
the audience more information clues, filling in the previous narrative gap of the movie and linking
simple linear plots into a network, leading to fully reflecting the continuity and subjectivity of
transmedia storytelling. Meanwhile, players are free to choose the development path of the leading
role, whether to become a unique savior or degenerate into a demon of annihilation, or even take an
unusual anti-hero way. It helps enlarge the empathy effect of audience when watching the movie,
and finally reach the point where virtual characters and real experience are combined. In "The
Amazing Spider-Man”, the players can even explore the story world with high freedom. It can be
said that the game narrative pulls the players into the image world defined by the algorithm rules,
clearing the boundaries between virtual and reality, so as to immerse them in the story world at all
times. In addition, it can mobilize the subjective initiative of the players to a great extent, so that
they can enjoy the story by participating in interactive exchanges, games and other ways. The
players are allowed to extract the information they want from it and make their own texts. In the
process of practice, the immersion and extractability of transmedia storytelling will expand the story
world infinitely and inject inexhaustible vitality into the "Spider-Man" series.
3. Films and “Fans Culture”
The development of digital technology will transform the world originally based on photocopy,
postal service and face-to-face contact into that of digital network communication. The
communication between people becomes open and free while breaking the shackles of physical
space, but also produces a more closed and private "circle" relationship. In the Internet Age, the
flood tide of participation by the whole people is unstoppable, and the most important part of
transmedia storytelling practice is developed in the fandom. Fans consider fandom as an informal
community with equality, reciprocity, sociability and diversity. Fans clearly know what they are
participating in, and can feel the happiness brought to them by participating in the production and
circulation of media content. In this context, understanding, production, incubation and circulation,
as potentially meaningful forms of participation, have strong links between them. Therefore, fans
create a new story world on the basis of the original story world construction with their own
experience and cognition. At this time, fans have the dual identities of text consumers and cultural
producers (or textual poachers), and they can transform each other.
It can even be said that with the gradual disappearance of man-machine boundaries, the original
identity of passive textual consumers as followers is gradually blurred. The self-identity is no longer
constrained by social ethics. People can freely define multiple identities in the network, that is, "the
self is separated in all directions". The communication between people becomes the transmission
and processing of data. Each person labels himself or herself with various labels, and makes a
complex correspondence between multiple abstract symbols and multiple personal identities. In the
era of explosive new media information, people's self-identity has also become fragmented. On the
Internet, people can diversify their identity at will. Female readers can cross gender and seek
recognition in other characters. By sorting out the labels of Spider-Man's creation, we can clearly
see the current female "cross gender" identity consciousness. In LOFTER, the largest fans’
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transformative works community website in China, Spider-Man ranks sixth in the European and
American popular creation list; in the European and American fan works list, Spider-Man's related
co-creation labels "Spideypool”, " Parksborn ", " Peter Parker/Tony Stark " are ranked seventh,
eleventh, fourteenth and fifteenth respectively, with tens of thousands of related creation
participation. In the world's largest English fans’ transformative works website “Archive of our
own(ao3)”, Spider-Man's most popular label is also " Spideypool ", with 3272 results. The main
content of the derivative texts created by these fans can be summarized as follows: Spider-Man and
his male friends or enemies finally develop a story beyond friendship after experiencing various
events. The creators are mostly female fans. "The process of reconstructing the pre-text reflects the
sense of identity, freedom and carnivalism of the interest-related group of young women. They
enjoy the surreal cyberspace, parody the classics and reconstruct the sublime, to create the literature
form belonging to the group label." Surprisingly, one of the most frequent labels in the retrieval is
“Spider-Man-All Media Types”. Here we can see the receiver’ unconscious acceptance and
conscious use of transmedia storytelling, which shows the success of the "Spider-Man" series of
transmedia storytelling practice in the receiver dimension.
4. Conclusion
All in all, spider-man films have made a lot of feedback creations from the perspective of
transmedia storytelling practice, which has given the story a new and different development
direction after the media narrative expansion. Although these derivative works spread on different
media platforms, they all point at the same story world setting, from which emerges rich and diverse
development possibilities. In the end, the spider-man films have established a continuous
transmedia industry network among films, games, comics and "fan culture", which can not only
break the audience's expectation horizon, but also meet the audience's needs.
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