Warning: If you have not seen Sharknado 3, spoilers follow the first paragraph.
Whether you tuned in for the Oh Hell No! action last night or not, Syfy wants you to know that, oh hell yes, there will definitely be more. The network announced a green-lit Sharknado 4 in one of the biggest, if not most blatant, attention-grabbing cliffhangers in recent memory, immediately referencing ’Nado 4 both on social media and TV. Ahead of the third installment’s Wednesday night debut, director Anthony C. Ferrante had teased Variety that he would be down not just for a fourth, but for many more, as long as people kept watching. “This one has to be successful, but as long as Syfy wants them, we’ll keep doing them,” he said, calling it a summer event. “It’s like a blockbuster movie, but for free on the network.” What will set the inevitable fourth apart — at least initially — is the fact fans and viewers get to play a part in the screenwriting process.
Here’s where we talk a bit about the ending; in other words, here is where the mild spoilers follow. Sharknado 3 finished, essentially, with this:
It was an over-the-top final sequence that tried to make Imperator Furiosa look like a square: Tara Reid’s character April went to space, had a really fake baby in shorts inside a shark, cut her way out of a shark belly with a chainsaw hand, and then maybe got hit in the face with spaceship debris. Maybe. So don’t forget to tweet your vote (or go here). The fate of April and her chainsaw hand is now in your hand(s). The Hollywood Reporter interviewed the producer who had the idea to end ’Nado 3 like this; he’s Chris Regina, the senior vice-president of program strategy over at Syfy, and he had this to say:
The original ending for the film … was having it all end on the beach in this wonderful family moment where they all hold hands, look up at the sky, Fin salutes his dad, and then we fade out. I said, “That’s great, but it sounds like the ending of a trilogy of a franchise that’s not going to continue. It’s a satisfying ending that doesn’t go on.” I wanted to take a page out of some of the classic television stunts that have been done and contemporize them. We needed to do something that was going to keep the audience in jeopardy and want to come back for another Sharknado. … I’m hoping that we’re going to break the Internet this time with the “April lives, April dies” at the end. I think it’s going to be precedent-setting.
At time of publication, neither hashtag was trending over the other yet. But April or no April, the great white twisters will continue to rage. Ferrante told Variety he wants the fourth movie to have a more international setting. He also wants Bill Murray to make an appearance. Amen to that last part — for which we can only put this out there, clasp our hands, and pray for the best.
