Sharknado, the writer explains why by ANNALEE NEWITZ and ROB BRICKEN
Thunder Levin, writer of Sharknado, gets asked some very‘ serious’ questions
This month, Syfy debuts the greatest shark disaster epic since Sharktopus. It’ s called Sharknado. And yeah, it’ s about a tornado— full of sharks. Thunder Levin wrote the script, and we caught up with him to ask some philosophical questions about this important film that forces us to question the very nature of reality itself.
Is there any scientific basis, however tenuous, for sharknado?
A month later they came back to me and said they really wanted me to write a movie called“ Sharknato”( at least that’ s what I thought they said), and I asked what sharks had to do with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization? I was suddenly seeing the army battling sharks invading Europe … But they said“ No, Sharknado!” They gave me about half a page of notes which I read and replied“ This is the most ridiculous thing I’ ve ever read … I’ M IN!”
Seriously, how drunk were you guys the first time someone uttered the word“ sharknado”?
Alas, I wasn’ t in the room for this historic moment, but they must have been pretty drunk!
Why a tornado and not a hurricane? Wouldn’ t that make more sense?
Actually, we have both. In the movie an unprecedented hurricane sweeps up the Pacific coast from Mexico towards L. A. driving all the sharks in this part of the ocean before it. The hurricane floods the streets of L. A., which is woefully unprepared for a hurricane.( Up to this point, it’ s all fairly accurate and something we should be thinking about, disaster preparednesswise). Naturally these floodwaters are filled with sharks! And then, as often happens, the hurricane
Yes. There are numerous confirmed reports of fish falling from the sky, sometimes even on a clear sunny day. We just took it to the“ logical” extreme.
How did you come up with such a blisteringly awesome concept?
Well, the Asylum( the company that produced the movie for Syfy) came to me just after I’ d completed writing / directing duties on last year’ s American Battleship( sorry,“ American Warships”) and asked me to pitch them ideas for a movie called“ Shark Storm”. I asked if this would be a straight up movie about sharks attacking during a storm or a crazy storm made up of sharks. They said it would be straight, so I declined, feeling like we’ d seen enough shark movies and enough storm movies.
28 | WGSA MAG July 2013