diff --git a/scrapy/commands/startproject.py b/scrapy/commands/startproject.py
index e3989baaf..1001b8682 100644
--- a/scrapy/commands/startproject.py
+++ b/scrapy/commands/startproject.py
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ TEMPLATES_TO_RENDER = (
     ('${project_name}', 'settings.py.tmpl'),
     ('${project_name}', 'items.py.tmpl'),
     ('${project_name}', 'pipelines.py.tmpl'),
+    ('${project_name}', 'middleware.py.tmpl'),
 )
 
 IGNORE = ignore_patterns('*.pyc', '.svn')
diff --git a/scrapy/templates/project/module/middleware.py.tmpl b/scrapy/templates/project/module/middleware.py.tmpl
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..0ae9d7160
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scrapy/templates/project/module/middleware.py.tmpl
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+
+# Define here the models for your spider middleware
+#
+# See documentation in:
+# http://doc.scrapy.org/en/latest/topics/spider-middleware.html
+
+
+class ${ProjectName}SpiderMiddleware(object):
+    # This method is called for each response that goes through the
+    # spider middleware and into the spider, for processing.
+
+    def process_spider_input(response, spider):
+        # Called for each response that goes to spider
+        pass
+
+    def process_spider_output(response, result, spider):
+        # Called for each response with the spider results
+        pass
+
+    def process_spider_exception(response, exception, spider):
+        # Called whenever a spider raises an exception
+        pass