'Sharknado' Causes Twitter Fury With Its Shark Storm

A shark-infested tornado movie aired by a cable channel left Twitter raging last night. “Sharknado” aired on Syfy late Thursday night and caused a storm of unseen tweets for an event of such modest size as a low-budget feature on television.

Debuting on the channel, the film starring Tara Reid did not reach a particularly large audience, reaching between 1 and 2 million viewers, but caused a much larger movement on the social network. At the peak of the comments, Sharknado was generating over 5, 000 messages per minute.

Even celebrities such as screenwriter Damon Lindelof, comedian Patton Oswalt, Newark Mayor Cory Brooker, and actress Mia Farrow all made sarcastic statements. Speaking of the repercussion, Syfy called the film its "most socially televised screening of all".

Leftovers Specialists

For Sharknado director Anthony C. Ferrante, the success of the film was completely unforeseen, as the television network spent almost nothing on advertising for the screening. “All we did was set up the trailers, tell other people about it and stuff, ” he said.

Image Source: Playback / Terrorama

Asylum, the company that produced the film, is used to producing the so-called "mockbusters" (or "zoa blocks"), low-budget feature films that often don't even hit theaters and make big screen hits. Among the company's products are films such as “Mega Shark Versus Crocossaur” and “Atlantic Rim”.

The company's co-founder David Michael Latt defines his creations as a parody of the studio system. “We're playing with the business side of it. Did you make your movie with $ 200 million? I'll make him with 20 bucks, ”he said.

I am going to write the Sharknado sequel and I am going to do it before Shaknado is over.

- Damon Lindelof (@DamonLindelof) July 12, 2013

Understanding serious nature of this threat Nwk OEM put together an action plan. We`re prepared! RT @RobertYoungman: Thoughts on SharkSwim?

- Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) July 12, 2013