It takes great minds to come up with a movie as gloriously horrible as \u201cSharknado.\u201d<\/p>\n
We know, because we tried. And failed.<\/p>\n
The B-movie maestros at Syfy welcomed a pair of Newsers into a closed-door pitch meeting to see how the magic \u2014 if your definition of magic includes terrible special effects and the use of \u201cshark\u201d as a prefix \u2014 is made.<\/p>\n
\u201cSharknado\u201d is the most successful flick in network history, airing four times so far and drawing more eyeballs with each telecast. Its peak at 2.1 million viewers is a record for a Syfy original movie \u2014 but now the network wants to catch lightning in a bottle again, and it\u2019s our job to whip up a new campy classic.<\/p>\n
First rule: If it\u2019s not scary small, it\u2019s not scary big.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s no point in a making a movie where something like a koala bear becomes a monster,\u201d says Thomas Vitale, executive vice president of original programming and movies. \u201cIt\u2019s a cute, eucalyptus tree-eating animal. No one is afraid of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Out goes what we believed to be our million-dollar movie idea: \u201cHamstergator.\u201d<\/p>\n
But we had others, like \u201cBlood Bug\u201d \u2014 a Kafka-esque horror film about radioactive bedbugs, tainted by nuclear waste as larvae, that spawn giant half-bedbug, half-human monsters. We could already see a bug guts-soaked Times Square finale with our heroes zapping critters as big as Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons \u2014 when the execs squashed it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou would never believe how many bedbug movies we\u2019ve been pitched. And we\u2019ve stayed away, although this might be a way in,\u201d Vitale says, being kind.<\/p>\n
Bedbugs, it turns out, give too many people the creeps. Since the resurgence of the pests, a movie featuring the little monsters could be more unsettling than Freddy, Jason and Sharktopus (\u201cHalf shark. Half octopus. All Killer\u201d) combined. Think about it: Millions cringe when they hear the \u201cb\u201d word, but only a fraction of the world\u2019s population has ever been attacked by a shark, let alone one with tentacles.<\/p>\n
Syfy wants B-movies that are escapist. Big, unbelievable monsters like the ones in Roger Corman\u2019s upcoming sequel \u201cSharktopus Vs. Pteracuda\u201d (yes, that\u2019s a pterodactyl crossed with a barracuda) sound ridiculous, but wind up more watchable than scary movies about real-life nightmares like bedbugs, rats, taxes or disease.<\/p>\n
Watching \u201cYoungzheimers,\u201d our pitch about med students who fall ill and lose their memory, doesn\u2019t sound like fun. Especially compared to \u201cPiranhaconda.\u201d<\/p>\n
Syfy makes creature features, horror, alien films and what Vitale calls unnatural natural disasters (\u201cA volcano in Hawaii is just not interesting,\u201d he said).<\/p>\n
Many of Syfy\u2019s biggest hits start with a great title, (\u201cJersey Shore Shark Attack\u201d), others are ripped from the headlines (\u201cSnakehead Terror\u201d) \u2014 but anyone can come up with a great idea. Independent producers pitch the films. If they\u2019re good, Vitale and his team \u2014 network brass Karen O\u2019Hara and Chris Regina \u2014 take over.
\nFrom right to left, Syfy’s Thomas Vitale, Karen O’Hara and Michael Engleman listen to Newsers’ ideas.
\nChristie M. Farriella for New York Daily News
\nFrom right to left, Syfy’s Thomas Vitale, Karen O’Hara and Michael Engleman listen to Newsers’ ideas.<\/p>\n
The execs take the best ideas overseas for funding, and let small production houses handle the making of the movies.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike everything in television, its a group effort,\u201d said Vitale.<\/p>\n
But Syfy is very picky about what gets the green light. Our idea for \u201cGlobal Winding,\u201d an end-of-the-world thriller about climate change\u2019s blustery effects, got nixed because it sounds like \u201ca fart movie,\u201d said O\u2019Hara.<\/p>\n
After the title, they look for a catchy tag line. Sharknado\u2019s brilliantly simple sloga n \u2014 \u201cEnough said!\u201d \u2014 catapulted the film into the social media stratosphere long before it aired. \u201cWait until you see the tagline for \u2018Sharknado 2,\u2019\u201d said Syfy marketing chief Michael Engleman.<\/p>\n
The tag line was all we had going for us when we pitched \u201cVery Accurate Lightning\u201d (\u201cCloudy, with a chance of death\u201d). \u201cIt sounds like a science show,\u201d said Engleman, who shot us down, but was mildly impressed that we took the time to Photoshop a few clip art silhouettes getting struck by lightning.<\/p>\n
In fact, Syfy already turned the weather phenomena into a villain in 2009\u2019s \u201cLightning Strikes\u201d \u2014 and it flopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no flesh and blood, nothing organic, nothing to chase,\u201d said Vitale. \u201cLightning is a little scientific, a little detached. It just didn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turns out, movies are scarier and more exciting when there\u2019s a tactile villain for the heroes to fight. And it helps if that foe has numerous and graphic ways of turning people into pulp.<\/p>\n
Our pitch for \u201cElephants on Steroids\u201d (players of pachyderm polo juice their steeds to horrific results) fell flat because all elephants can do is trample.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere are the teeth, claws and fangs?\u201d Vitale asked.<\/p>\n
Those fangs and claws have been a boon to Syfy for more than a decade. The network has produced around 250 of the flicks, each on a shoestring budget of around $2 million for 90 minutes of entertainment \u2014 about half the cost of an episode of most one-hour broadcast network dramas.<\/p>\n
Their programming is silly, but Syfy takes its work seriously. While making \u201cSharknado,\u201d staffers actually spent days fighting about the physics of flying sharks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had long arguments over how when the sharks are flung out of the tornado they can\u2019t glide like hang-gliders,\u201d said O\u2019Hara. \u201cThat\u2019s the way it was in an early version of the script. I said, \u2018No, they have to just be flung out and flop around.\u2019 You\u2019d think we wouldn\u2019t go that far, discussing how the sharks move, but within that space it has to have a certain kind of internal logic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Treating the most absurd subject with that kind of attention to detail is part of what makes Syfy\u2019s B-movies special.<\/p>\n
So be campy \u2014 but not too campy. Like our pitch for \u201cRed Mobster,\u201d about a human-lobster hybrid avenging fishermen for its ancestors\u2019 buttery deaths.<\/p>\n
\u201cClose your eyes and think of a giant lobster waddling around,\u201d said Vitale. \u201cIt\u2019s like a Saturday morning cartoon. Too silly.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to know where, or if, Syfy draws the line \u2014 these are the folks who made \u201cMansquito.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there is a line, and we crossed it with our pitch for \u201cAdolfin,\u201d about a Nazi marine biologist who trains a dolphin to kill.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d said Vitale. \u201cJust\u2026 no.\u201d<\/p>\n
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