Leviathan. The Kraken. Moby Dick. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Jaws. Shark Week. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Sharknado. The Shallows. 47 Meters Down. The Meg. And Aquaman will release later this year. Throughout the years, good stories that explore mankind’s fear of the unknown have been incredibly effective. For Hollywood, the ocean holds vast opportunities for a variety of storylines. It is truly the last unexplored area on planet Earth, as less than one percent of the planet’s oceans have been fully mapped. And that doesn’t begin to state the obvious: There’s sure to be plenty of underwater species that have yet to be discovered by scientists. That is why underwater predators have always been used to great effect in horror movies.
Last week, The Meg debuted to $44.5 million at the U.S. box office and made $97 million in 43 markets worldwide, totaling $141.3 million against a net projected budget of $130 million. With a projected $20 million take expected this week in the U.S. it’s looking like the shark movie will make around $100 million in this country alone, which is well on its way to being profitable.
Speaking of profitable, production company The Asylum has made a name for itself creating ultra low-budget horror films on micro budgets while maxing out its publicity (and profitability). Tomorrow, The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time will air on Syfy, which happens to come at a good time for underwater-related programming, as Shark Week happened two weeks ago and The Meg debuted to No. 1 at the North American box office last week. All Sharknado, all the time has been the theme for Syfy (also known as Aquatic Predators Week), as each of the previous movies in the franchise have aired, along with many of The Asylum’s films.
Horror culture in general and survival horror, specifically, sells well when it comes to underwater scary stories. When adding science fiction mash-up elements, it’s actually surprising there haven’t been many more releases highlighting unstoppable terrors from under the sea. Sexy women in bikinis. Unstoppable sharks. Outrageous storylines. Combining all three creates movies full of suspense, regardless the size of their budgets.
Time travel. Knights. Dinosaurs. Noah’s Ark. Nazis. While The Last Sharknado seemingly combines every storytelling trope possible, it should be cheesy fun that encourages drinking games while watching, along with plenty of laughs. Here, at Zombies In My Blog, we’re big fans of the Sharknado franchise, especially the movies’ spin-off book, How to Survive a Sharknado.
While Syfy and The Asylum have both confirmed this will be the final film in the Sharknado franchise, we’re hoping there will be more. Many more. Bring them on. Whether there will be any true sequels following Fin’s further adventures, spin-offs featuring Fin’s children — or possibly even Nova(!) — or actual prequels now that time travel has altered the overall storyline, we can’t wait to watch the movie tomorrow and speculate what will happen next for the franchise. If Fin has indeed fought his final sharknado, maybe he could appear in the sure-to-be-created sequel to The Meg in the distant future to help Jason Statham fight a megalodon.
Now that’s a killer crossover.