The White House, the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian are all destroyed. But Fin manages to save the president (played by Mark Cuban) and heads south to be with family.\u00a0 But \u2014 wait for it \u2014 more sharknados threaten the entire Eastern Seaboard, especially Orlando.<\/p>\n
READ: Did Mia Farrow watch ‘Sharknado’ with Philip Roth?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Levin spoke to JTA by phone from Los Angeles, where he was at the tail end of a promotional tour that included Comic Con. At one session, he casually mentioned he always considered the films ripe grist for a Broadway musical \u2014 which caused a stir on social media.<\/p>\n \u201cThat sort of blew up<\/a>,\u201d Levin said. \u201cWe\u2019d all been joking about that since the first one. The only thing more absurd than \u2018Sharknado\u2019 is \u2018Sharknado the Musical.\u2019 But I started in musical theater in high school and was a director and stage manager in college. I think it would be a blast. I can imagine shark puppets dropping in the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSharknado\u201d wasn\u2019t Levin\u2019s first venture into horror humor. He made his bones in 2008 as both writer and director of the feature film, \u201cMutant Vampire Zombies From the Hood.\u201d He\u2019s also directed and\/or wrote \u201cAmerican Warships\u201d (about an alien attack on an American plane) and \u201cAE: Apocalypse Earth\u201d (refugees from earth on a hostile alien planet) \u2014 so it wasn\u2019t a great leap to sharks falling from the sky.<\/p>\n People constantly ask, \u201c\u2018How do you come up with these crazy ideas for these movies?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s no good answer to the question. I don\u2019t know. There\u2019s no secret, ancient book of sharks.\u201d<\/p>\n Actually, the original idea for the Sharknado series originated with Asylum \u2014 the production company with which he\u2019d worked his previous movies \u2014 which\u00a0wanted to do a feature called \u201cShark Storm.\u201d They approached Syfy, and it turned out the network already had \u201cSharknado\u201d as a title.<\/p>\n \u201cAsylum came to me and asked if I\u2019d be interested in working on a film called \u2018Sharknado,\u2019\u201d Levin recalls. \u201cOnly I heard \u2018SharkNATO\u2019 \u2014 and asked what do sharks have to do with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they explained, I said, \u2018Tornadoes? That\u2019s the most ridiculous thing I\u2019ve ever heard \u2014 I\u2019m in,\u2019\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n Not everyone was as enthusiastic. \u201cFor the first \u2018Sharknado,\u2019 we couldn\u2019t get anyone to be in it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe ended up temporarily changing the title to \u2018Dark Skies.\u2019 When we finally told the cast the real name, they were not happy.\u201d<\/span> Although Levin is not involved in casting, he\u2019s aware that it\u2019s no longer a problem. In fact, part of the fun of watching the \u201cSharknado\u201d movies is picking out the names of the rich and famous or rich and notorious: Michele Bachmann, Ann Coulter, Frankie Muniz, Jackie Collins and Penn & Teller, among a host of others.<\/p>\n In addition to star Ziering, included in the pantheon are a couple of notorious Jews,\u00a0<\/span>Anthony Weiner\u00a0<\/span><\/a>and\u00a0<\/span>Jerry Springer<\/a>. Bernie Madoff was otherwise engaged.<\/p>\n Levin grew up in New York City the son of a Christian mom from Liverpool, England and a Jewish father. \u201cMy father went to temple and I went along with him a couple of times,” he said. “But it\u2019s really hard for me to talk about religion, because I didn\u2019t have faith instilled in me by my parents.\u201d<\/p>\n But Levin believes his sense of irony and humor are descended from his father\u2019s side. It\u2019s \u201cinformed by New York City and its large percentage of Jews,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, growing up I thought the U.S. was 50\u00a0percent\u00a0Jewish and 50 percent Christian. I was shocked when I found out that wasn\u2019t so.\u201d<\/p>\n If his sense of humor was courtesy his dad, Levin\u2019s fascination with science fiction came from his mom. \u201cWhen I was a little kid, \u2018Star Trek\u2019 was my favorite show and the only one my mother would let me stay up to watch,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to grow up to be Captain Kirk or Mr. Spock,\u201d he said. Levin recalls that when he was 7 or 8, someone gave him a book, \u201cThe Making of Star Trek.\u201d Though he found the text dry, he was drawn to the photographs \u2014 particularly one of studio techs working on the Enterprise.<\/p>\n \u201cI realized there was a way to get on there without being Kirk,\u201d he said. \u201cAnother seed was planted in 1977 when \u2018Star Wars\u2019 came out and completely blew my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n Levin further enhanced his geek cred by standing in line with 100 buddies for six weeks (they rotated) to be the first to see \u201cStar Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace\u201d in 1999.<\/p>\n That explains a lot. Which leaves only one question: Thunder \u2014 really?<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the \u201860s and strange things were happening,\u201d Levin said. \u201cMy mother went into labor during a thunderstorm and said to my dad, \u2018Let\u2019s name him Thunder.\u2019\u201d<\/span> \u201cSharknado 3: Oh Hell No!\u201d debuts on the Syfy network Wednesday, July 22, at 9 p.m.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nYet the film became a surprising hit, eventually. When it debuted, it was seen by slightly fewer people\u00a0than Syfy’s typical film audience. But it wasn\u2019t how many people watched that proved important \u2014 it was\u00a0<\/span>who<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>watched. The\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Twittersphere lit up<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>as celebs like Wil Wheaton and Olivia Wilde discussed the show, and it was the subject of the last tweet Corey Monteith sent before he died. As a result, the audience for subsequent showings exploded, and \u201cSharknado\u201d spawned \u201cSharknado Two: The Second One\u201d and now, \u201cOh Hell No.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nGood thing he wasn\u2019t born during a sharknado.<\/p>\n![\"Share](\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\")