‘Sharknado’ Stars Reveal That They Thought the Film (And Its Title) Would End Their Careers
Today, the name Sharknado is synonymous with cult classic. The 2013 movie has given birth to five sequels, plus countless rip-offs, and breathed new life into both the campy sci-fi and animal-attack film genres. But before it was made, the name did not inspire great enthusiasm from potential stars. In fact, no one replied to the original casting notice.
So producers retitled the film Dark Skies and managed to land 90210’s Ian Ziering and American Pie’s Tara Reid as stars. But, as the actors revealed at the Hollywood Show convention in Los Angeles, they were horrified to discover the film would actually be called Sharknado.
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“Four days into shooting, we’re soaked in some car downtown with grips holding the car,” Ziering recalled. “There’s a green screen throwing water on us, and [director] Anthony [C. Ferrante] calls break and says, ‘Got to talk to you guys. I want to tell you the name of the movie because I thought it was Dark Skies.’”
“This is a true story,” Reid added. “We were offered this movie called Dark Skies. Alright, I can put that in my IMDb, it doesn’t sound so bad, and no one’s ever seen this movie ever. Then, I don’t know who told us, but we were in the makeup chairs, and they tell us the title is going to be Sharknado, and we both were like, no way! We call our agents! Sharknado? Seriously, we’re never going to work again. We were terrified.”
Credit: Mike Pingel
Ziering added, “Hell no. I need a few minutes. I go into the bathroom, sitting on the crapper, talking to my agent. ‘Get me off this movie. This is gonna be the end of my career. I’m never gonna work again.’
“My agent was like, ‘Don’t worry, it’s going right to video, no one is gonna see this movie. What’s the matter? Just relax.’ I said, ‘Well, can you get me unlisted on IMDb? I can’t have Sharknado on IMDb.’ I was afraid that it was literally going to be the end. Then news is all about this Sharknado movie that has taken over the internet and is breaking the internet. It’s my worst fear because I thought it was all negative, but it turned out to be all positive.”
Credit: Mike Pingel
The panel, which, in addition to Reid and Ziering, included director Anthony C. Ferrante, Jaason Simmons (Baz Hogan) and Julie McCullough (Joni Waves), yielded other revelations — such as that Ziering was not the first choice to play the film’s hero.
“The closest person to being possibly in the movie was Crispin Glover , but it was a phone call that I had to have with Crispin,” Ferrante recalled of the Back to the Future star.
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“We were scouting [locations] the movie down in San Pedro and they go, ‘You gotta talk to him and convince him to do the movie.’ I got on the phone, and he goes, ‘Why do you want me to be in this movie?’ … My head is like, ‘I can’t screw this up because producers are expecting me to seal the deal. But there’s no way he was going to do the movie.’”