When the Judge becomes ill he sends his unwitting niece Helen Chester with the important documents to Alaska. Due to the immense popularity of The Spoilers in its original nine reel version, Selig shot additional scenes for the film in 1915 and released it in a twelve reel version in early 1916. This version begins with shots of Rex Beach in his study after the characters were introduced. This is believed to be Rex Beach's only screen appearance. Beach, the author of this story, was also a screenwriter for Sam Goldwyn.
Some contemporary sources list the original release at eight reels.
The Spoilers received favorable reviews. The picture made the biggest kind of a hit with the Strands opening night audience and although it ran along more than an hour the film held the closest attention until the very end. After 1916, The Spoilers was remade five times. The most famous was produced in 1942, for Universal Studios, starring Marlene Dietrich and John Wayne. He founded one of the earliest motion picture companies in Chicago and he helped develop a projector called the Polyscope and a camera based upon the Lumiere camera projector.