Posted by I love Syfy Original movies. I always made the joke that their original movies were just made by an employee throwing 4 darts at a massive board with “scary things” written all over it.
*throws dart* “Alright we’ve got zombies”
*throws next dart* “Annnnd dinosaur. Let’s go with Zombie Raptors. Ok and they’ll be fighting…”
*throws another dart* “Ok, Ghosts. Classic. Mixed with…”
*throws dart* “Bigfoot. Alright let’s call it a GhostSquatch. ‘Zombie Raptors vs. Ghostsquatch‘ and let’s go with a budget of…”
*throws dart* “160 bucks? Sound good. Alright get going everyone, this has to premier in…”
*throws dart* “2 months!”
Well back in 2013 some low level intern threw the darts in the right places to end up with Sharknado. A movie with less than a 2 million dollar budget (nothing compared to movies like Infinity War which have an estimated 400 million dollar budget), premiered on a C-list network and ended up making more than 17 million at the box office. This splurged into a wild franchise that involved Al Roker and the Good Morning America cast reporting on Sharknado warnings, Mark Cuban as the President of the United States, Frankie Muniz acting in his first movie in 2 years after just asking if he could be in it, David Hasselhoff becoming a main character, and finally ending with a plot involving time travel….so yeah it really went off the rails and was taken to heights no one could ever imagine.
Ian Ziering plays Fin Shephard (Yup, his name is FIN) the protagonist of the series, and guess what? He got paid more to do Sharknado 5 than Gal Gadot got to play Wonder Woman. WONDER. FREAKING. WOMAN. The most successful blockbuster movie to come out of the DC Universe. Does that have something to do with the wage gap in Hollywood? Probably. Almost entirely. But it also has to do with Sharknado grossing hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of the franchise. For the 5th installment, Fin got paid 500k while Gal got a base salary of 300k to play Wonder Woman (with presumably a crap ton more after the success of the movie but hey, stats are stats).
I was on the Sharknado train early. I watched the premier of the original back in 2013 and was excited when I heard they were making a sequel. The SyFy twitter account asked fans to suggest names for the sequel, and this is where I had a falling out with the movie. I go on twitter and suggest quite possibly the best name a series like this could ever ask for. A silly pun that encompasses the movie and everything it stands for. It would capture the tone of this absurd piece of cinematic mystery to a TEE, and they didn’t use it. What was my suggestion?
Sharknado 2: unFINished Business.
COME ON. I handed it to them on a silver platter for free and then they slapped me in the face with this dumb-ass “it’s been done a million times” joke of a title.
“The Second One”. LOL! Syfy makes one funny movie by accident and now they think they can make meta jokes. Hilarious!
The series got more absurd as they went on and so did their titles. Check the others out.
Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!
This is my favorite one. This title’s got it. I don’t know what it is, but it’s got it.
Sharknado: The 4th Awakens
An absolute RIOT that they used the same title (essentially) as the biggest blockbuster movie of that year.
Sharknado 5: Global Swarming
A huge controversial subject at the time of climate change and becoming eco-friendly and Sharknado is there to just make us all laugh about it. A naive innocent dumb humor to make us forget about the harsh realities of the world.
Last but not least,
The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time
Again, love the self-awareness that there have been way too many of these but also incorporating the pun that this one involves time travel.
These movies must’ve been so much fun to make. I feel like this is the plot of a movie my friends and I would make up jokingly after a few beers except these people get millions of dollars to make it a reality.
You had a good run Sharknado. 6 movies over 6 years reminding us all not to take things to seriously and enjoy the goofy absurdity that ensues when a Tornado filled with living Sharks forms around a big group of innocent people.
Here’s to hoping the franchise isn’t truly FINished, and will be rebooted for #7 in a few years.
(See what I did there?)
djchickenparm.com 