Syfy Nurtures Bizarre ‘Sharknado’ Success By Expanding a Threequel to the Entire Eastern Seaboard

By  · Published on October 20th, 2014

SyFy

We’re all refreshing Sharknado’s Twitter on an hourly basis, right? I’m going to assume that, yes, most of society is, so you probably already heard the news this morning that Sharknado 3 is real, and it already has a below-average shark pun tethered to its name: Feast Coast ‐ okay, technically the word “feast” isn’t specifically a sharkological term, but put it in close enough proximity to the word “Sharknado” and it fits just fine. The details come from an Orlando-based Sharknado press tour, alongside the fateful Twitter reveal explaining just what a “Feast Coast” is. Apparently, it’s a stretch of coastal America from Washington, DC, to Florida marauded by airborne sharks.

Then comes IGN with a scant few details more. The film will begin by hurling sharks at our nation’s capital (this is apparently “what [Washington, DC] deserves,” according to Syfy and Chiller President Dave Howe, who seems to hold a shark-based grudge against big government), then travel southward until it ends in Orlando. No cast has been announced yet, but it’s a safe bet that Tara Reid and Ian Ziering will return. Also, it’s probably best to assume that “Feast Coast” isn’t actually the subtitle for Sharknado 3, as Syfy is likely to hold another contest on social media to come up with the name, like they did for Sharknado 2: The Second One.

Basic human logic would decree that Sharknado 3 is a thing that should not exist. The original Sharknado’s popularity seemingly had nothing to do with the actual movie and entirely to do with a premise as silly/stupid/bafflingly insane as a tornado full of sharks. But for obvious reasons basic human logic doesn’t apply when we’re talking about Sharknado. Not only did the first film generate the ratings to justify a sequel, but Sharknado 2 defied what should happen to the sequel to a goofy gimmick of a wind-propelled shark flick (dwindling success) and absolutely demolished the numbers, not unlike a tornado full of sharks descending on Nielsen headquarters. The Second One brought in 3.9m viewers, which is not only the highest number for any Syfy original film in history, but it’s also an awe-inspiring 183% increase over the audience of the first Sharknado.

Then factor in the Sharknado video game, the Sharknado book and “Sharknado Week” (a solid week of Sharknado airings anchored around the release of the last film, with a whopping 25m viewers in total) and we have no choice but to admit that Sharknado is going to continue into the foreseeable future. It would certainly explain why Syfy is bumping up Sharknado 3’s setting from a single city to a to good six or seven states. They’ve got to keep that steadily growing Sharknado audience satisfied enough to come back for the inevitable Sharknado 4. At what number do you think we’ll get Sharknado in Space? I’m thinking part five or six.

So, for now let’s rejoice. Sharknado is dumb as hell ‐ and in a lot of ways the wrong kind of dumb as hell: the so-bad-it’s-good flick that’s been engineered that way on purpose instead of coming about its terribleness naturally through catastrophic creative failure ‐ but it’s an endearing kind of dumb as hell. Plus, every new Sharknado comes with a limited midnight release in theaters, and we will always support the gathering of mass audiences to laugh at stupid funny shark movies. Always.