Sharknado was a runaway success for the SyFy network, if you ignore ratings and go purely by Internet buzz. It became a bit of a Twitter sensation, prompting a seemingly endless stream of jokes like “What’s next? Sharcano?” (The answer to that hypothetical question is yes, but only in book form.) It’s only natural, then, that SyFy would follow it up with a sequel, and that sequel is Sharknado 2: The Second One.
Note the subtitle that boldly declares, “See? We don’t actually care about this movie so we are immune from any criticism it may receive. We didn’t even bother thinking up a subtitle.” That kind of self-aware ironic detachment has become common to films like Sharknado and its ilk. They want to be cheesy B-movies, and they want you to know that they know that they are cheesy B-movies. That is precisely what makes them less fun than, say, The Room or Troll 2, where the kitsch is purely unintentional.
But you know what The Room and Troll 2 didn’t have? Tara Reid. And Tara Reid is someone you vaguely recognize as having probably been in a movie you saw back in the ’90s or something, so naturally the producers of Sharknado 2: Whatever, We’ll Be Over by the Craft Services Table Checking Our Voicemails brought her back to match the star power she brought to the first movie.
Ian Ziering will also be reprising his role from the original, so the multitudes of Ian Ziering fans out there also have something to look forward to. Hopefully the official Ian Ziering fan site doesn’t crash under all the traffic generated by this news.
The “plot” of the sequel will have Reid and Ziering’s characters traveling to New York City, where they will think they’re safe as they stroll through Times Square, admiring all the stores that used to be adult cinemas. But wait! Now that era of Giuliani and Bloomberg has passed and the city has a Democratic mayor, the Big Apple is once again overrun by filth, crime, and tornadoes made of sharks.
Shooting for Sharknado 2: The Second One will begin in New York on February 13, so if you happen to be in town that day, don’t worry if you see a shark fly by your hotel window. That’s just Hollywood working its magic, one shark-themed natural disaster at a time.
