Trivia / Kingdom of the Spiders

• Never Work with Children or Animals: The production used 5,000 tarantulas (most of them wild spiders captured for a fee), and they proved predictably difficult to train or control. Since tarantulas tend to cannibalize each other in captivity, they had to be kept in individual containers, and were almost impossible to direct; photographs from the set show that they were kept under plastic cups between takes, since the crew couldn't otherwise prevent them from running off, while jets of air were used to persuade the spiders to swarm on the actors, as they're usually shy of humans. Although the cast and crew did try not to injure the animals in most scenes, sequences like the mass attack in the street used so many spiders that it was impossible to prevent them all from being harmed.
• Sleeper Hit: The film might have been ridiculed but it was surprisingly successful, making $17 million off a budget of just $1 million, a 1600% return.
• Stillborn Franchise: Shatner attempted to get a sequel off the ground with The Cannon Group in the 1980s with him potentially directing and starring, even taking out a trade ad announcing it. There was also another attempt in 2003 by original producer Igo Kantor, this one getting a full synopsis released online.

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