#184 The Writer of Sharknado 1,2,3 and 4 Thunder Levin Dives Deep Into The Blockbuster Franchise

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:31

All right, Tara, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You get the show going each and every week, and this week was no exception. Welcome, everybody to Episode 184 of classic conversations. As always, I'm your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Bringing you another world when episode a pod NATO, if you will, my guest today is writer and director fundata 11. That's right under 11. If you know me, you know that I am obsessed. I love Sharknado Sharknado movies and thunder Levin wrote Sharknado 123. And for and we're going through them all. If you're looking for an oral history of the approach to writing this blockbuster franchise, well, you have come to the right place because this episode is delivering the NATO's I'm telling you that right now. We also dive into some of unders other mock Buster movies at Apocalypse Now. American warships and mute and vampires zombies from the hood. This episode has got it all under elevens coming up in just a few seconds and in these few seconds. I want to remind everyone that Timmy is fine. He is not in the well. Timmy from Lassie, John provosts was here last week, an amazing conversation with one of the biggest child stars from the 50s and 60s That's just waiting for you right after you finish this one. But right now that's NATO it out and dive in with 111. All right, everyone, I'm excited to introduce you to my next guest. He's the writer, director of mutant vampire zombies from the hood, American warships at Apocalypse Earth geo disaster. And he is the writer of one of my favorite obsessions. Sharknado, Thunder row 123 and four. All right enough said welcome to the show. Thunder Levin, how are you?

Thunder Levin 2:24

I'm great. How are you?

Jeff Dwoskin 2:25

I'm doing great. Thank you. Thanks for hanging with me on my podcast. Appreciate that. My pleasure. excited to talk to you like many I was caught up in the frenzy of Sharknado. When it came out, the ability to talk to the person that helped create that is a joy. But before we get to that, let's work up to that. I'd like to talk about some of the other work that you've done and just sort of maybe what got you into writing in the first place? I know your father was an award winning journalist. So did you just grow up around that and it was sort of in your blood and just writing was something that came naturally to you.

Thunder Levin 2:59

I think being in that environment, helped being in a, I don't know an erudite east coast, liberal intelligentsia, milieu, if you will, to use way fancier words than we ever used in Sharknado. Just being in the in that environment. Growing up in New York City, there were always possibilities as to what I might do. And you know, having a father who was a journalist certainly just sort of gives you a, I don't know, a wider worldview, I guess opposed to maybe growing up in a small town. I don't know that he's so much affected me becoming a writer. I mean, I resisted becoming a writer for a long time, I was very set on on simply being a director. I started into writing just sort of because everybody said, Well, if you want to direct write something that people want to buy and attach yourself so you know, that's sort of how I really got into writing. But it was more about science fiction, I think being I was like a Star Trek fan when I was a little kid and that that sort of sparked my imagination. So my father certainly helped with an appreciation for language, I think, my imagination and and some of the Fanciful ways my brain goes probably had more to do with my mom because she was a science fiction fan. And her father, my maternal grandfather was one of the founding members of the British Interplanetary Society, along with Arthur C. Clarke and some other notables. So that at least played an equal and equal role in whatever I've ended up becoming.

Jeff Dwoskin 4:30

So Big Star Trek fan. I mean, one of the things I love about the movies that you do Sharknado was littered with them is there's a million pop culture references like you just love kind of putting nods to things in it. I love that I love when you see something and you go, Oh, that was That was clever. That was cool.

Thunder Levin 4:49

That's always been a big thing for me and producers and production executives have always pushed back against it. And they say it pulls you out of the out of the story. And I'm like, No, if a story is taking place in our present day contemporary society, these references are part of our lives. So of course, they should be part of movies. And I got a lot of pushback on that. And in fact, in the first Sharknado, I had a whole bunch of pop culture references, and I was forced to take them out basically everything except the jaws references, which they sort of grudgingly acknowledged were appropriate, I had to take them all out. And then by the fourth movie, they were forcing me to put in even more pop culture references than I intended, because it had been such a popular thing. So yeah, it's to me, it's just natural. And I'm glad that fans appreciate it.

Jeff Dwoskin 5:36

When you approach putting a pop culture reference in a movie. Do you like it to be so subtle that people maybe don't get it the first time? Or do you like to hit him on the head? I'm guessing the producers towards the end of four we're like, hit him on the head with it. But like, yeah, the subtleness of it.

Thunder Levin 5:53

Yeah, well, by Sharknado, four, we were required to hit everyone over the head with everything. Both To be honest, I mean, there are I like to put in subtle ones that, you know, only real diehards will catch and more obvious ones, to sort of clue people in, you know, a more obvious one is sort of like a key on a map that will tell you what to look for and what the little symbols mean, you know, and maybe it gets you to look for for more subtle ones that are buried a bit deeper.

Jeff Dwoskin 6:22

When you look back at some of your work, or you like, some people never caught those. Like they were just, they were just you know, they're there. But yeah, yeah, in

Thunder Levin 6:31

Mutant vampire zombies from the hood. I had some aliens references in there. And I don't think anybody caught them. So yeah, I think there are a few of those, you know, Sharknado was not a subtle storytelling process. And so the the pop culture references were not subtle, usually,

Jeff Dwoskin 6:45

on your path to becoming a director, writer, director, you worked with the legendary Roger Corman did in the early 80s as a still late 80s

Thunder Levin 6:55

I'm not that I'm sorry. I'm

Jeff Dwoskin 6:56

sorry, late 80s. How was it working with him? And how did he did he helped kind of mold the career that was to come you

Thunder Levin 7:04

know, I didn't work one on one with Roger much. By the time I was working for his company, he was just sort of an executive who owned the company. He wasn't that hands on that somebody on the crew would work with him much. My main memory of Roger where we had direct interaction was the first day on set of stripped to kill to and I was still photographer had gotten a whole talking to buy the production manager. I mean, it was a movie about strippers. So there was there was nudity and it was in all the actresses contracts, apparently, or so I was told that there was to be no still photography during nude scenes. And I'd got to talking to from the production manager about that I was okay, I won't, I won't do that I leave my camera in the other room. At the beginning of the first day on set, Roger comes to the set, you know, to give everybody a pep talk. And then he takes me aside and he says, I want you to take lots of nude shots. That's how we'll sell the film. And I was like, You're the boss, Roger knows best. Yes, Roger knows best. And what was funny about that was that by the end of that film, I didn't even want to look at naked women. You know, even at home with my with my wife, we had to have sex with the lights off because I'd seen too many naked, naked bodies for in too short. The other thing about working for Roger, though, and more importantly, to a directing career, whether he was on set or not, he had rules for how things were done, you could only have a certain number of takes. And if you had too many takes on one shot, then the next three shots, you could only have one or two takes. And if he's laid dolly track, you had to use it for at least two different setups, because otherwise it was eating too much time you had all these rules for making film production go quickly and less expensively. And I learned a lot from that. And it helped me in making low budget movies. Because there's, there's a whole skill to it, in my opinion, anybody can make a $200 million film because you're surrounding yourself with the best people possible. And you have all the time in the world and all the resources and if something's not working, you throw money at it until it works. But having to make a competent film on a two or three week shoot with no money to do things. So when something goes wrong, you have to be clever and figure out a different way to do things that's actually a lot harder and a lot more challenging. And I think it's a good way to learn. Because then when you move into bigger things, you know, when things go wrong, you're not going to get a stress

Jeff Dwoskin 9:26

does that process start with the writing, like when you write something, you have to kind of think about the scene at hand and how many people might have to be in it or you know, just all those kind of elements that go into it. That could times 10 The cost

Thunder Levin 9:39

sometimes I mean it I guess in general when you're making a low budget movie, yes. When I did mutant vampire zombies from the hood, I knew we had very little money and very little time to shoot it. And I knew I was going to have to shoot it, which is a big part of it. Because if someone else's directing, you know, whatever, they'll figure

Jeff Dwoskin 9:58

it out. That was your directorial day. debut. Yeah,

Thunder Levin 10:01

I mean, on a feature film standpoint, I'd directed countless other things. But yeah, so the OSI was very much aware of that. And I had actually written a big final action sequence for that film. As we were getting closer to production. And we were breaking down the budget and seeing just what we were going to be able to do, I realized I was never going to be able to do this big action sequence at the end. So I sort of speaking of aliens, I took a page from the aliens play book, and I made the finale more personal. So we became a one on one thing between the the hero and the worst of the zombies. And that and that allowed us to, hopefully at least generate intensity without the need for for huge over the top action sequence. Now, when it came to Sharknado, it was a very different story, because we knew it had to be this big over the top ridiculous thing. My marching orders from the asylum were to not take budget into account when I was writing. And so we went through the entire development process, and the script was approved without ever thinking about budget. And then for months, there was sort of this unspoken elephant in the room, like, Okay, we all know, there's no way we can shoot this film as written. And so right near the end, they said, Okay, we need you to do one more revision, where you make the shootable. And it still wasn't suitable, but it wasn't as impossible. As the earlier drafts were,

Jeff Dwoskin 11:24

why did you decide not to direct Sharknado?

Thunder Levin 11:28

Ah, well, I just thought that was a brilliant career move. There were a lot of different factors in that the biggest one was simply that I had another film that I'd written that was scheduled to shoot at the same time, and it was a small, but serious science fiction film, while more serious, it wasn't, I mean, it wasn't tongue in cheek. And since I'd already done sort of a tongue in cheek disaster film and mutant vampire zombies from the hood, I thought, let me do this serious science fiction thing, which is kind of what I got into the business to do in the first place. And it meant I got to go off to the jungles of Costa Rica for a couple of months. And that was fun and exciting, and was in quite an adventure. That was the main factor, though. There were lesser factors in that I'd written $100 million film and I wasn't quite sure how to do it on a million dollar budget. I guess I was a little concerned about being pigeonholed as a guy who only did this campy stuff. And of course, that's happened. So yeah, so that was that. I mean, in hindsight, probably wasn't the smartest career move I ever made. I mean, Anthony Ferrante, the director of Sharknado, and I kind of kind of split the attention that came in the wake of Sharknado. If I had directed it, and assuming it had been as successful as it was, you know, then I would have been the lone creative genius. And probably it would have been an even bigger career boost than it was. But you know, if wishes were fishes,

Jeff Dwoskin 12:55

right, so the movie you did do then was a pocalypse? Earth

Thunder Levin 12:59

Yeah, when I when I made it, it was just called a ye Apocalypse Earth was sort of tacked on at the end. I liked the idea that it was just called a and it was very mysterious. And people kept asking me, What Does he stand for? And eventually, I started saying almost everything. But yeah, that was the film star to Adrian Paul and Richard Grieco, and bale Rodriguez and Bally Rodriguez, who had never really had never really acted before. It was certainly her first leading role. And that was an interesting process, seeing how she learned how to be part of a film Cast in a film crew. And she was she was a very sweet, sweet person who was it was interesting. She was in Costa Rica. And that's how we cast her because she was a local, but she was an international model. So she didn't have a strictly Costa Rican accent. She spoke English pretty much perfectly, but she didn't have didn't have a definable accent, it was just sort of an odd accent. And that was perfect for the character she was playing because she wasn't playing in Costa Rica. So that actually worked out to our benefit.

Jeff Dwoskin 14:00

Question on that is one of the notes that I found when looking at some of the research on the movies is, was the name of the movie changed because it was close to the release of After Earth. You know,

Thunder Levin 14:12

the asylum is famous for making quote, unquote, mock busters. And so their business model basically, is to come out with movies with very similar titles to big blockbuster movies. And all the films that I've made for them were theoretically mock busters, but they have to make the decision about what films they're going to do mock busters of, you know, months or even a year ahead of time. And so it's turned out that every film that I've done a mock Buster of the big studio movies have actually been terrible and have mostly underperformed and so on. A lot of times, I've been able to say, at least in my mind, truthfully, you know, our production values may have been much less but I actually made better movies than them battleship or After Earth, or I don't even remember what geo disaster was a mock best joke To be honest, Geostorm Geostorm yeah shows you how quickly it came and went. Yeah, Dean Devlin, I

Jeff Dwoskin 15:05

think after independence stayed

Thunder Levin 15:07

right. I actually liked Dean Devlin, but that that movie not so much. So no, he was not was not changed because of that he was changed because the asylum doesn't deal in subtlety. And so a film called AE was not an asylum title. But Apocalypse Earth was an asylum title.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:28

Sorry to interrupt his amazing conversation with thunder 11. But I want to take a quick break. And thank everyone for their support of the sponsors. When you support the sponsors. You're supporting us here at Classic conversations. And that's how we keep the lights on. And now back to my amazing conversation with thunder 11. Got it? Okay. So

Thunder Levin 15:47

in fact, there's I'm sorry to interrupt. There's a funny story about that. The producers came to me and they said, We're going to change the title. And I forget what it was, but whatever, whatever, whatever the title was, that they come up with, gave away the twist at the end of the movie. And I was like, Guys, you can't call it this. And so I threw out a bunch of subtle, mysterious titles. And they were like, this was an email from the from the head guy, David Ramallah said, I'm glad you're thinking jaws. How did he say this? I guess he said, I'm glad you're thinking Jaws when you made the movie. But it's time to think Sharknado when promoting it. And so we finally settled on Apocalypse Earth, because there is an apocalypse in the very beginning of the movie. And so hopefully, people wouldn't get the twist right away.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:34

So with these mock busters, what is the asylum do they get? The industry kind of knows what's happening, they kind of know it, Will Smith is doing or Dean and then they kind of say, hey, thunder, you know, this is the basic thing kind of use some of this plotline are so that we can kind of get this out. I remember, as I look, as I think back, I remember going to like Blockbuster. And you know, you'd see these on the shelves, right? And they would be like, right, that looks just like the movie. It's out.

Thunder Levin 17:01

Right? Well, the business model was invented during the heyday of blockbuster. And the idea was that your grandma would be going to Blockbuster to rent a movie to watch with the kids. And she'd say, see this title that looked a lot like a title everybody was talking about. And she think, oh, that's what the kids want to see. And they'd rent it. But from a filmmaking standpoint, we never approached it that way the asylum would provide you with anywhere be would provide you with a title and anywhere between a one sentence and one paragraph, quick pitch of what the movie should be about. And then it will be up to you to develop from there. And usually, this would happen before, at least in my case, because I didn't follow the upfronts or stuff like that. I wouldn't know anything about the film. I was mock busting. I mean, in battleship, it was obvious because there had been such a huge early media campaign. And it was you know about this beloved board game. But that's all I knew about battleship was that it was about a board game. And they their marching orders for battleship was it just had to be a movie that could be called battleships. That was literally the only instruction I was given. And it wasn't until we were well into this story plotting thing where I had come up with first it was going to be North Korea was the bad guy. And then it was going to be a rogue terrorist organization. And then it was going to be a rogue terrorist organization organization pretending to be North Korea. But whichever way I spun it, the fact that they had these, this advanced technology that was putting the rest of the US Navy out of commission was always a bit of a stretch. And late in the development process. It was in the outline process. I hadn't started writing the script yet. I got this, this email from the Director of Development at the asylum saying, okay, everything you're doing is great. But we want you to change the bad guy has to be space aliens. To me, I thought that was the greatest script note I had ever gotten, because it was just so ridiculous. And so over the top, but in fact, it actually solved all my problems, because now there was a way for it to make perfect sense that the enemy had this advanced weaponry that was defeating the whole US military. It's kind of it's kind of one of those stories where you, you get these bizarre notes from development people that writers talk about all the time, that just seem ridiculous and make no sense at all. But in this case, it was both ridiculous and made perfect sense. But I didn't know at the time, that battleship, the studio movie actually dealt with aliens. And to be honest, I felt a little manipulated when I found that out. So they knew so they knew they had found out but it did actually help my story for a EA I didn't know anything about After Earth. My marching orders for AE was a band of humans struggle to survive on a hostile alien planet. That was it. You know, when we're making these mock busters we're not trying to make spoofs Have the studio films internally within the filmmaking process, we're just making the best movies we can on very low budgets based on a premise that they're then going to later be able to mark it in in a similar fashion. As filmmakers, we really don't have anything to do with that marketing process.

Jeff Dwoskin 20:16

Now one original driver of American battleship was to use the name battleship, but that movie was changed to American warships because universals sued right right in French, and he had to change that American warships star Mario van Peebles,

Thunder Levin 20:31

Mario van Peebles, and the great Carl Weathers. Yeah, so the original title was battleships, plural. And then it was changed to American battleship. And what happened with the lawsuit was, I believe it was the British distributor, don't don't hold me to this. I don't want to get sued for libel if it was somebody else. But if, if memory serves, it was a British distributor who released the film early, and they just called it battleship. And that's where the lawsuit started. And then the post because they wanted to stop that from being released. And then the poster was very similar to the universal movie poster. The whole lawsuit was only about the marketing campaign, they were never suing for copyright infringement for the content of the movie. So I mean, I remember getting a call from the asylums lawyer and talking to me about stuff. And I was like, they're not suing the film I made. They're suing your marketing campaign. And in fact, I never had to talk to anybody about it. After that. They I guess they ended up settling. And the way they settled was to change the title. And to change the poster. Here's an insult. But here's, here's the funny thing about that. Sorry, no, go ahead. The funny thing about that whole scenario is that universal was suing the asylum for a movie that was going to be released on Sci Fi Channel, sci fi is owned by Universal.

Jeff Dwoskin 21:49

Somebody didn't get the memos that they were passing around, I guess.

Thunder Levin 21:52

Well, in fact, a lot of a lot of people at Sci Fi Channel apparently, it's funny because when Sharknado blew up, the asylum was very concerned about how to present me to the powers that be because a lot of people almost lost their jobs over American warships at Sci Fi Channel. And in fact, the Sci Fi Channel original movies department was probably going to be shut down until Sharknado became this unexpected hit.

Jeff Dwoskin 22:23

Alright, so you see you save them you saved

Thunder Levin 22:25

so so I both risked everybody's job for the way they were looking at it. I both almost got everyone fired, and then save their jobs. That's a

Jeff Dwoskin 22:33

real hero story, right? So I this is a quote, I think I got this off of Wikipedia. Oh, so then it has to be accurate has to be accurate. Levin's work was largely responsible for the resurgence of shark exploitation films. Shark exploitation is an exploitation filled sub genre, the Sharknado series sword mock Buster Shark, Shark exploitation to new heights of fame. So they they credited you for a series of shark movies that came after including Ozark shark, the shallows. Five headed shark, attack shark and Stein and many, many more. Were born because of the blowing up of Sharknado. All right, so let's talk Sharknado. So originally, you told them they were crazy, right when they they approached you with this shark storm idea? Oh, well,

Thunder Levin 23:20

I didn't say that. No, I'm paraphrasing. Yes. That's not entirely accurate. So the way it started, I had just done American warships. And despite the lawsuit internally, the asylum was very happy with the film. They thought it was one of their their best films to date. And so they were eager to have me do something else. And we spent a few months talking about what I was going to do next. And the A E idea was on the table, and there was a giant monster movie on the table. And then they came to me and they said, what we really want you to do is this movie called Shark storm. And I was like, No, not really. Haven't we seen enough shark movies, I felt like the genre had been played out. And the asylum has a habit despite their low budgets of playing all their movies very straight. They don't go in for for spoofs or satire or camp. And so trying to make a movie called Shark storm, I knew we weren't gonna have the budget to do it. Right. And it just it just didn't interest me. So they said, Okay, fine, we'll find somebody else to do it. And we went ahead and talked about a UI. And we talked about this giant monster movie, which eventually became Atlantic rim. And then was title was changed to from beneath or something like that. And I was actually developing at one point, I was developing three different movies for them at the same time, and they came back to me and they said, Okay, forget shark storm. Now it's called Sharknado. And I said, what the sharks have to do with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. And they said, no, no, no. Sharknado a tornado of sharks. And I said, That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. And as long as I can play it that way, um, Then, because I knew a movie called Sharknado could not be played seriously. I mean, it had to be played overly seriously basically, to make it work. And they said, No, we agree a movie called Sharknado has to be a bit ridiculous. And so then once I had that permission, we were off to the races because I knew it was gonna be a blast. It was just too much fun. So yeah, crazy like a fox at that point. And what had happened in the in the meantime, apparently, is the the asylum wants to do the shark storm movie and Sci Fi Channel had a title for a movie Sharknado but they didn't have a story for it. And so when the asylum said, we want to do a shark store movie, they said, okay, great, but called Sharknado. And they came back to me and they said, Okay, Sharknado and I said, Okay, now now we're gonna have some fun. It's a

Jeff Dwoskin 25:44

title that immediately grabs you. And I wasn't aware of it, obviously, on the marketing campaign, but with the poster and all that, that played a lot into why it was so popular. You know, like, it just grabbed everyone's attention. It was just so easy to digest what this was, and just seem so, so crazy. I read the Sci Fi Channel, I actually rejected it twice. And then somebody slipped a line into one of the leprechaun movies about a Sharknado. So the name Sharknado actually kind of made its way into a leprechaun movie before.

Thunder Levin 26:13

Yeah, a movie that it was leprechauns revenge, I guess, written by coincidentally or not Anthony C. Ferrante. And it was just a line of dialogue to characters are hiding out from the leprechauns. And they say something like, I hope our town doesn't go the way of that other town. It never recovered after the Sharknado hit. And that was it. And then the scene just went on, it was just a conversation. And then I guess, Anthony, and his collaborator, pitch sci fi, something called Sharknado. And they didn't go for it, but the title stuck with and so when asylum wanted to do shark storm, they said, okay, but change the title. And apparently, not apparently, because I never got any, I don't know what what the story pitch for the original Sharknado was that they turned down because I was just given some notes from the asylum about things the movie could have in it. And then I had to create a story. So then when I turned down the directing job, they tried to find somebody else to direct the film. And they couldn't, they went through their whole roster of people. And nobody wants to do a movie called Sharknado. I guess they thought it would be the end of their careers. And then apparently, Anthony was had a meeting with them to pitch some horror film ideas. And he looked at the development board that's in the office, and they're on the development board was a movie called Sharknado. And kudos to him that he didn't just immediately call his lawyer, because that's probably what I would have done. But apparently, he remained fairly calm and asked about this project and said, Hey, that's, that's my project. And once it was all explained, because I don't think anyone at the asylum knew that he had pitched a Sharknado project, they decided that the safest bets and they couldn't find anyone to direct it, anyhow, was to have Anthony directed, and then they wouldn't get sued. I mean, of course, you can't actually sue over a title. So I mean, it wouldn't have, I don't know, it was Kismet at all, it all worked out the way it was supposed to.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:14

So I was watching a documentary that's to actually get actors to commit to the raw, including Kara and I, and they actually pitch the movie to them as as a movie called dark skies,

Thunder Levin 28:25

dark skies, I was in Costa Rica doing pre production on a UI, and I get an email from the asylum saying, Can you please make up a copy of the script, a file pdf of the Sharknado script, but with the title, dark skies on it? And I was like, first of all, there was a movie out at the time called dark skies. So why are they picking that title? And be why couldn't someone in the office have created this file? They didn't need the writer to change the title on the you know, on the script. But yeah, I was like, why are we doing this? And they said, we can't we can't get anybody to agree to be in a movie called Sharknado. So we're changing the title. And And what's funny is that I had done the same thing on mutant vampires zombies from the hood that had been written with the title restless dead, but I thought restless Dead was way too generic a title, we weren't going to get any attention. And so I changed the title, the mutant vampire zombies from the hood. But my casting director begged and pleaded, said please don't make that the title until after the cast has been assembled. And so we didn't. And we got our cast, including C Thomas Howell. And it was in the midst of filming that I informed them that the movie was actually going to be called mutant vampire zombies from the hood. And they all freaked out. And they staged an intervention where they all all got me alone and said, You can't call it this. I said, Trust me, trust me, this is the better title. This is going to work for marketing. And the and apparently the same thing happened on Sharknado. And when it came out that it was going to be called Sharknado. Both Ayan and Tara called their agents to try and get off the film thinking it was going to be the end of their career. Little did they know little did they know But we knew the only one who didn't do that was John Hurt. John knew right away that that was the smart way to go. He was he was the biggest champion of Sharknado. Right from the right from the moment he was cast and supported us all the way through. He was the biggest actor to come to the first. The first ComiCon he got it. And thank God he

Jeff Dwoskin 30:21

did. Did he help ease the other cast members into the name?

Thunder Levin 30:24

I think so. I wasn't on set for the first film. I was in Costa Rica, right. But that's what Anthony says.

Jeff Dwoskin 30:30

Okay, so you wrote Sharknado you head off to Costa Rica to make Apocalypse Earth. So is the first time you saw your script come to life? Not necessarily the day premiered. But what what were your reactions? Once you saw it? How close your actual vision did it match?

Thunder Levin 30:45

It was actually the day it premiered. Okay. Anthony wouldn't let me see it. We were actually sharing an editing suite. I was cutting EY. And this guy walks in that I've never met. And he says, You're thunder 11. I said, Yeah, I want to punch you. What the fuck? And he said, I directed Sharknado. And I was like, Oh, well, I could see why you'd want to punch me. But yeah, so then we were both cutting our films in the same editing suite. And every once in a while, I'd try and look over and see what they were doing. And he'd like, stop. And he'd say, don't look, I don't want you to see it until it's done. And I heard that they were adding a car chase. And there was not only no place and nowhere in the script, was there a car chase, there was no reason for there to be a car chase, there was no logical justification for there to be a car chase. But I heard they were adding a car chase. And that got me a little worried. So I didn't actually see the movie. Everyone else had seen it. I didn't actually see the movie until it premiered. I had no idea what to expect.

Jeff Dwoskin 31:42

So once you saw your script come to life, what were your thoughts on the movie? Did it match your vision?

Thunder Levin 31:47

The Well, of course, it wasn't as grand as my vision. I mean, I'd written a movie where Los Angeles is filled with water, and all the streets are flooded, you know, up to your waist, and there are sharks swimming in them. And of course, there was no way to pull that off on a $1 million budget. So I mean, my expectations were tempered going in, I knew it couldn't be my actual vision. And that's one of the reasons why I hadn't directed it, because I knew I wouldn't be able to achieve my vision on the budget that we had. But then Anthony made a lot of changes in the first 1520 minutes of the movie, where he rearranged things, he didn't actually invent too much new stuff. He didn't change who the characters were. But he arranged the order of some events in the in the first act. And so I for the first 1520 minutes, I was sitting there going, what the hell is going on? And then gradually, it got back into what I had laid out. And so it I would say, by the end of it, I was pleased that had brought my vision to life within the budget parameters available. Okay. All right, it was the $1 million version of my vision, let's let's put it that way.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:57

So when you're watching it on premiere night, and suddenly everything's blowing up on Twitter, it's sort of a case study in social media. Interestingly enough, though, the actual premier numbers I read are lower than a normal Sci Fi Channel movie 1.37 versus 1.5. But the NATO have tweets, the tweet NATO, if you created on social media, with celebrities and such just elevated it to a whole different level.

Thunder Levin 33:27

Yeah. First, let's clear one thing up the ratings there, there was a lot of press about how the ratings were actually lower than a typical Sci Fi Channel Original Movie, what they didn't take into account is it up until that night, all the Sci Fi Channel original movies have premiered on Saturday night, and this one when there was no network TV competition. And this one premiered on a weeknight when there was lots of competition. So that that's kind of a false metric to say that our ratings were lower. As for what it became that night, it was utterly surreal. We had an inkling that that it was going to be big, because for about two weeks leading up to the release, there was a lot of a lot of buzz, a lot of word of mouth, a lot of press. I mean, I'd done a bunch of interviews for Sharknado. So we had we had a clue that it was not going to be the typical asylum sci fi movie, Sci Fi Channel movie, but we had this live tweet scheduled. And I'd done one the year before for American warships. And you know, we would get on and there'd be like 100 to 100 people following the tweet, and a few of them would be asking serious questions, and the rest would be telling us how bad we suck. And so that's what I was expecting for Sharknado. And then I got on Twitter and something bizarre and miraculous was happening because you couldn't get a word in edgewise. Every time you hit refresh. There was hundreds more Sharknado tweets and celebrities started tweeting about it. I think where it started was with with me a pharaoh who posts have this picture of her and Philip Roth supposedly watching it, and tweeting omg omg omg Sharknado. It came out later that the picture she posted wasn't actually them watching Sharknado. It was a picture from them looking at their computer for something weeks before, but it was her tweet that sort of set off the celebrity avalanche of tweets. And then everybody started joining in. And it was just, it was just amazing. And, you know, it was kind of kind of one of those nights you dream about when you dream of being a filmmaker of having this huge hit. And suddenly, the next morning, the phone is ringing off the hook. I mean, I got up the next morning after Sharknado. And I had something like 50 messages on my voicemail. And more than that, emails, it was just extraordinary and the way people came together and the way they all got in the spirit of it, and trading tweets with celebrity it was it was just an amazing night,

Jeff Dwoskin 35:55

right? Yeah, Wil Wheaton was all over it. And then Cory Montes, who passed away from shortly after from Glee, his last two tweets, which are still there, I went and looked really Sharknado but it just it was fun. Because cool thing about Twitter as when when shark NATO's trending and like a Wil Wheaton tweets, and somebody replies to a Wil Wheaton, that one now that, you know, nobody can do that. And that gets elevated as well, because there's so much heat on the original tweet and kind of just go Yeah,

Thunder Levin 36:27

that's right. No ball effect. It's

Jeff Dwoskin 36:28

amazing, huge snowball effect,

Thunder Levin 36:30

it had never really happened. I think that's where a lot of awareness of the value of social media for TV and movies really sort of

Jeff Dwoskin 36:38

came from. At one point, they were saying there was 5000 tweets. 5000 tweets per minute. Yeah, insane amount. Yeah, more than the Red Wedding. Right. And that was, that was a big one on HBO. So yeah, sorry to interrupt, but we have to take a quick break. And now back to my amazing conversation with thunder 11. We're about to dive into the social media approach to Sharknado. Two, and we're back. So to thank the fans for Sharknado. Two, you turn to social media to let them help name subtitle or the second part of the movie, the second part of your in theory, in theory, in theory, the second part of the title, so yeah, yeah, the subtitle the second one, right, right, right. That was a marketing thing that sci fi did. I have no way of, I don't want to impugn anybody, but I have no way of knowing if that title actually came from social media, or if it came from the Sci Fi marketing department. I

Thunder Levin 37:35

I don't know. I never saw any statistics saying that. The second one was got the most tweets or something. So

Jeff Dwoskin 37:43

two points of interest. I read Steve Gutenberg was quite upset because he was offered the role of in turn turned it down. Later got lava launched you Ah, not as popular. Not sure anything has been as popular Sharknado?

Thunder Levin 37:55

No, nothing. Not a single movie since 2013. Has been as popular Sharknado

Jeff Dwoskin 37:59

Sharknado was like, well, sorry. Well, yeah, well, yes. And that kind of frenzy. i You could harken back to like the old days when like you'd go old days like the you know, the 80s and video where he'd go and everyone would line up at a movie theater rise, that excitement that first day would be wrapped around the theater, like it was kind of reminiscent of that let me ask you, because

Thunder Levin 38:19

so it was I actually make a big thing. And I when I do public speaking appearances, I make a point about how Sharknado actually save civilization as we know it, because it used to be that we would get this, this sort of shared language, right. I mean, from the Andrew thaw, sitting around a campfire, to the oral histories of native peoples to Greek plays to the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson for a whole generation. If you didn't watch the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson before he went to bed, you wouldn't know what people were talking about the next day at work. But we lost that when you know, you could start watching things whenever you want it. And we didn't all go to the movie theater to see the same thing. At the same time. We didn't all tune in on TV to have that water cooler moment. And then Sharknado sort of brought back the water cooler moment because everybody was talking about it all at the same time. And I think it shows how important these this common common vocabulary is to make society a cohesive whole.

Jeff Dwoskin 39:22

I agree. 100% I think I always kind of think when Netflix and stuff, they release all things at one time, like eight episodes at once versus when they like at the Mandalorian and stuff like that where they release them week after week after week. You they totally give up that moment and the ability for people to talk about it.

Thunder Levin 39:40

Absolutely. Because you don't know if your friends have seen it or not. And so either you're gonna piss them off with spoilers or you you hold it in and you don't talk about him by the time they've seen it. You've forgotten what you saw. Yeah, I'm

Jeff Dwoskin 39:52

right, because you can't remember what happened, right because you've rushed it so fast. Right? It's a kind of recap the 1.3 million view Here's what's happened to Thursday when they replayed it on July 18, it had 1.8 9 million. And then they did it again, a third time where it broke 2 million viewers. So I think it was 2.2. The third show Yes, yes. And so just it just kept building and building and building, which was incredible. I have a question. So that that debuted July 11 2013. On July 10, what had been your plans?

Thunder Levin 40:26

Well, there was, there was a party, a screening party for the West Coast airing. So the idea was, we were going to, you know, each independently from our homes take part in the live tweet for the East Coast airing. And then we were gonna go to this party for the West Coast, Eric, and things got so crazy during the East Coast airing, that by the time I got out in the car to go to the party, there was this huge traffic jam. I don't I don't know why. Because it should have been should have been late enough. The traffic would not have been that bad. But there was this huge traffic and I got like three miles down the freeway and realized I wasn't going to make it to the party. And I turned around and went home and just got back on the on Twitter for the for the West Coast showing. Yeah, the real question is what was what were my plans for the 12th?

Jeff Dwoskin 41:15

Right, because what were you going to do before, it became clear that you had to immediately start working on Sharknado? Two? Yeah,

Thunder Levin 41:23

I don't remember that night was a turning point and nothing nothing before it is. So what was going to happen is not no longer relevant

Jeff Dwoskin 41:31

was the writing process and for Sharknado? Two, a lot more difficult in the sense that there were more fingers in the pie? Because is it is it fair to say that's what happens when we Sharknado they didn't know it was gonna be the biggest thing ever, suddenly, now the biggest thing ever occurred. And we have to go again, to the executive start to think well, we're a little we need to be involved. We need to be more involved.

Thunder Levin 41:53

Yes, each successive Sharknado had more and more fingers in the pie. The first one, like I said, the original movies department, it looked like it was going to be shut down. And nobody really cared. I got one round of notes from sci fi on the original Sharknado script. And they weren't even particularly major on the on the second one, they determined upfront where it was going to be set. In fact, I found out where Sharknado two was going to be set from the press. Yeah, I saw sci fi as announcement that Sharknado two was going to take place in New York. And I was like, Well, I'm glad somebody consulted. But it worked out perfectly, because I'm from New York. So it was a great opportunity to tell a story about my hometown. And then yeah, there were a lot more eyes on it. And the whole development process, we were all sort of throwing ideas in in a hat and I pitched a story they we got certain parameters it had to take place in New York City, it had to make use of all the great famous landmarks in New York, and it had to involve family just as the first one had. So okay, I pitched an idea. It started out that Finn would be going to the United Nations to receive an award for his heroism in in the first Sharknado. And his he would be meeting his parents there. And then you know, we all throw ideas in the hat. And there would be sort of a group think about, okay, we like this one best. We don't like that one things would get winnowed down. And instead of his parents, what if it's his sister and some nephews, because we don't want old fogies in the cast. We want younger people in the cast that that sort of came from sci fi. So it was his sister and her kids. And then the idea of his, his long lost best friend from adolescence and, and it all sort of evolved, but there were a lot of people who had their eyes on it. And the one thing they kept asking me was, what is going to be the Sharknado moment, which is what they were referring to the moment in the first movie, where Finn dives into the shark with his chainsaw, and then cuts his way out. And then Nova was in the same shark, and he pulls her out, and that drove everybody insane. How was I going to top that moment? And I kept telling them, I don't know, but I'll figure it out by the time I get there. And they didn't like that at all. It was because they were all very nervous. Because, you know, I guess everybody figured out we have to we have to top the first one. And if we don't, our jobs are on the line. But fortunately, Anthony and then the asylum went to bat for me. And they said, Leave him be let him do his thing. So once we had sort of a general outline of what the story would be, I went off to write the script. And to be honest, I didn't know what the Sharknado moment would be. But I was writing the opening on the airplane. And I think they had someone had suggested that April, terrorists character should end up with a chainsaw hand, and I was like, well, it shouldn't be a chainsaw because Bruce Campbell already did that in Evil Dead. So we'll have a be a different kind of saw, but Yeah, okay, she'll lose her hand. So as I was writing the plane sequence where she loses her hand and, and the shark comes, I thought, okay, let's do something with the same shark, since that's basically what we'd done in the first movie, the same shark that swallowed Nova would be the one that swallowed fin. So once I knew it was going to be the same shark, that just led to okay, that means her hand is inside the shark. So we can do something with that, since we'd set up the fin and April, were strange. By the end of the first movie, maybe they were back together, I thought, okay, he's gonna pull the handout and take the ring off and propose to her with it. And so that combined with him, riding the shark down onto the spire of the Empire State Building became sort of the Sharknado moment. And I was very gratified because the night before we started shooting the Sci Fi executives because the movie channel Syfy, original movie department was based in New York. And so the night before we started shooting, they took us out to dinner, and the head of the Department took me aside, and he said, that moment at the end that we were all waiting for. That was genius. Thank you. And that was like one of the best moments I've ever I've ever had on in my writing career.

Jeff Dwoskin 46:12

Oh, yeah. And not only does he propose he uses the gun that Tara was holding kills the shark. My favorite part of that is when he just takes the ring off and then just tosses the arm away. Doesn't even think twice. Like, oh, maybe we should. Yeah,

Thunder Levin 46:26

just toss it away. I will give credit where it was where it's due. That was Anthony's idea.

Jeff Dwoskin 46:30

Just such a funny visual. So when you're writing the opening scene, which was great, and this sequel did exactly what I think you needed to do, right? You built on the first one, and made a better movie. Oh, when I say made a better movie. I mean, that's what you'd expect. Like this second one. Yeah. Does average rides the first one and all the beats are there. Everything's there. So when you're writing that opening scene, when did you know you had Robert Hayes to put in all the airplane references

Thunder Levin 46:55

we put in the airplane references and then fate smiled upon us and we got Robert Hayes at the last minute. What we intended actually was for the pilot and co pilot to be William Shatner and John Lithgow because not only were we doing airplane references, we were also doing Twilight Zone reference right when he sees the shark out the window. That's that's a an homage to the to the famous Twilight Zone bit where in the original series William Shatner sees this creature out on the wing of a plane. And then in the movie version, John Lithgow sees this creature out on the wing of the plane. So we wanted to have them as a pilot and co pilot. And when it was presented to William Shatner, his agent responded with a one sentence email Sharknado. No. That was very disappointing.

Jeff Dwoskin 47:44

And this was Sharknado. Three, I bet he would have said yes. Because that's when everyone just fell in line. Yeah, I bet that would have been great, though, then you could have still had Robert Hayes is a passenger with the drinking problem.

Thunder Levin 47:55

Right? Right. Yeah. So we didn't know who was going to be the pilot until like a day or two before the shoot. And I think at the last minute, we found out and I went back and I threw in one extra airplane reference. But there were already several in there. And we already knew that the tail you know of the plane would come through the clouds like a shark fin. We already knew that that we were going to have trouble with the number four engine and and a couple other things like that. I think the thing we flew we threw in at the end. Oh, gosh, I don't remember. I know there was one we threw in right at the last minute with Robert Hayes. But I honestly don't remember which one it was

Jeff Dwoskin 48:34

got it. Well, that was brilliant. It was great. I guess you put it out in the Universe and Universe just smiled on. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Via that one had not as many as as three it kind of broke open and three. But this one also, Kelly Osborne Wil Wheaton, Richard Kind, though the Wil Wheaton

Thunder Levin 48:48

cameo was an interesting story, because he had agreed to do it. But then the scheduling looked like he wasn't going to be able to do it because he was shooting a guest appearance on Big Bang Theory. And it didn't look like he was going to be able to get to the second time. And so on the set of Big Bang Theory, he told them that he had this opportunity to go do a cameo in Sharknado. And was there any way he could make that. And not only did they get him out early enough to run to our set to do the cameo, but he actually threw in a line into Big Bang Theory, playing himself as Wil Wheaton saying he had a chance to do audition for Sharknado. And that ended up being in the episode of The Big Bang Theory. So that was that was a great a great moment.

Jeff Dwoskin 49:34

That's awesome. That's awesome story. Oh, Billy Ray Cyrus is a Surgeon General. Taxi Driver.

Thunder Levin 49:41

Well, Judd Hirsch is a taxi driver. If that wasn't one of the best casting things to ever happen in a movie I wrote. I don't know what would be. I mean, that was just I was just so perfect. And he was great on set. He was just a great person to talk to very friendly and just a real class professional. He nailed everything. Yeah, he

Jeff Dwoskin 49:59

was a great guy. add on. He was like the John Hurt. Yeah. Well, he

Thunder Levin 50:02

was. Yeah, it was that was that was very much who's going to be our John Hurt? And

Jeff Dwoskin 50:06

so was Sharknado. Three. It sounds like they took some of your story ideas from to Yeah, kind of worked it into the array. Well, I kind of while you worked it into three Yeah, you were the writer so yeah, I mean, they pay being you.

Thunder Levin 50:21

Yeah, they they decided sci fi decided that it should be the East Coast. And it should be kind of a road trip up the East Coast, and they wanted it to either begin or end in Washington DC. And so Washington DC provided me the opportunity to do what I'd want it to do in the second one, which was to have Finn get an award. But even better, he could get it from the president in the White House instead of the UN.

Jeff Dwoskin 50:47

This one had I mean, every other moment seemed to be cameo. So now people are coming out of the woodwork to people. People just wanted to get eaten by sharks. Yeah,

Thunder Levin 50:57

yeah. Yeah. In the second one, during the Twitter explosion of the first movie, a lot of celebrities tweeted. So we reached out to all of them when we were doing the second one. And most of them were like, you know, it was all in good fun. But we're not actually going to come do this. professionally. A few. Did you know, Patton Oswald did. And Wil Wheaton did and Judah Friedlander, great guy. He's a great guy and a real a real person, no pretension to Judah Friedlander whatsoever. He would ride in the cast and the crew van with us. At one point, we were stuck in traffic coming back from set in Queens. And he was like, just let me off here. I'm gonna walk. And today he just walked off through the streets in New York. It was great. He was a great guy. And we met up at a convention like the next year, he was someone who had tweeted, and Anthony tweeted back to him. And so he actually, you know, put his money where his mouth was for the second one, because the second one had such great ratings. The second one broke the record for the Sci Fi channel's original movie, basically demolished it. And so by the third one, everyone was coming out of the woodwork.

Jeff Dwoskin 52:02

Right. I mean, I have a question. I read that Sarah Palin was first offered Mark Cuban's role as president, and then Donald Trump was actually approached as well. But then he turned it down. He backed out or something. And then yeah, I big question is, so Ann Coulter is in the movie? Yes. But she lives. Yeah. Was that a contract thing she

Thunder Levin 52:22

had, you don't want to die? I don't know. I was not involved in that conversation.

Jeff Dwoskin 52:27

Not that I was ill, and anyone but I think seeing arginine by a shark would have been amazing.

Thunder Levin 52:31

Yes. There was a lot of discussion that we were going to try and get members of Congress and other politicians to appear and be eaten by sharks. And I don't know, I was not privy to the conversation as to whether Ann Coulter would be in or not. But you know, we tried to get we tried to get whoever we could the Donald Trump story. I mean, people get mad at me, because if only he had been president in Sharknado, maybe he would have gotten it out of his system. And we'd all be better off today. He was first proposed as the mayor of New York in the second one. And when I heard that, I freaked out. I was like, Donald Trump is one of the most hated people in New York. It's literally impossible that he would be the mayor of New York City. You can't cast him as that. And they were like, Yeah, you're probably right. And then when they found Robert Klein, who was just Pitch Perfect, he was the he was the perfect combination of Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani. As we knew Giuliani back then before he lost his mind. And I thought, Robert Klein was just a perfect New York Mayor, I'd vote for him.

Jeff Dwoskin 53:35

I would vote for him. I vote for him, too. He was great.

Thunder Levin 53:39

Then in the third one, apparently they talked to Trump about being President. And they were told no. And I told them, Look, Donald Trump is not believable as President of the United States. Nobody would ever accept that as being real. And fortunately, they were able to then get Mark Cuban who was wonderful. And then apparently, Trump found out that Cuban who was sort of his nemesis had gotten the role, and he got all upset, and he threatened to sue. You know, it was just ridiculous. But Mark Cuban was, I always joke that my billionaire, or at least I did for four years that my billionaire president is better than your billionaire president.

Jeff Dwoskin 54:16

So Fen gets the Presidential Medal of Freedom and first member of the Order of the Golden chains. So that's awesome. And then I just want to point out two character names general Gottlieb and ourselves, who are references to Carl Gottlieb and Joe aus write to us from Jaws. I've had them both on the podcast cool, big jaws fan. So

Thunder Levin 54:39

did they talk about me? Did they did they say they were gonna quit Sharknado references and their next word?

Jeff Dwoskin 54:44

Yes. So this movie introduced the brilliant casting of David Hasselhoff as fins father love that yeah,

Thunder Levin 54:53

you know, there's actually a there's I'm sorry to interrupt. There's a funny story about Jaws people and not right referencing me during Comic Con for Sharknado two, I went to do an interview at a TV studio in San Diego. And Richard Dreyfus was there doing an interview for somebody else. And we were introduced, and I said, I'm here for Sharknado. And he said, What? Sharknado and it just broke my heart. Man just broke my heart. Anyhow, that's it. Well, I

Jeff Dwoskin 55:21

apologize on behalf of. So my favorite line in Sharknado three is David Hasselhoff saying the independence needs to fly the shuttle, just him saying it. It's okay. Anyway, I just want to say thank you. Yeah, I just I'm a big Hasselhoff fan.

Thunder Levin 55:39

My favorite of his lines was something like we're not dead yet.

Jeff Dwoskin 55:44

He was great. He was brilliant. It totally Yeah. He totally added so much. It was great. Yeah.

Thunder Levin 55:50

Yeah. And it's so it's so self aware. You know, he and his place in in pop culture is sort of self aware. And and so having him in a software movie like that was really perfect,

Jeff Dwoskin 56:01

perfect, absolutely perfect. And so the movie ends with them and space sharks and space and re entering,

Thunder Levin 56:09

which, which I have gone on record was saying is that that's the first thing that isn't theoretically possible. Up until that moment, everything in Sharknado in three movies was at least theoretically possible.

Jeff Dwoskin 56:21

That's true. There have been real NATO's has been fished NATO's frog, NATO's jellyfish, NATO's worm, NATO's, and alligator alligator NATO's,

Thunder Levin 56:29

I looked at all. I don't know about the alligator ones.

Jeff Dwoskin 56:32

There's an instance while here. In 1887, New York Times reported alligators just flopping somewhere, eight of them. So can you believe the New York Times? I don't know. But there it is, there it is. So this one ends with Finn being swamped by shark Tara being swamped by sharks re entering the atmosphere from space in the shark, Tara Reed gives birth to the child, her child, Gill, the son in the shark, and then gets smushed, or we think she gets mush. And then you turn to Twitter again, or April lives or April dies. So just determining

Thunder Levin 57:07

and so I that that one, I went the reverse, instead of being the same shark, we think it's going to be the same shark and then it's different sharks. So that was really creative.

Jeff Dwoskin 57:18

Terrorists surviving was much more impressive, because then use a parachute.

Thunder Levin 57:23

That's right, that's or not, that's right. But those two bits giving birth in the shark and fin punching a hole in the shark and then using his parachute. That was sort of my answer to what's going to be the Sharknado moment of this movie, that parachute thing came to me. I was riding my bike along the beach and thinking about what is it going to be because this time they weren't settling for, I'll figure it out. When I get there. They wanted to know upfront, like I said, each each successive movie had more had more oversight. And this time they they wanted to know upfront, and I was riding along the beach and that idea came to me and I stopped and I got my phone out and I called Anthony I said what do you think about this? And he said, I love it. So that was that was that moment

Jeff Dwoskin 58:03

very cool. So April lives. She lives to go for an Academy Award for this one more time. And then the timing of the fourth movie couldn't have been better timing with the Star Wars The Force Awakens, leading to the greatest title of Force Awakens Sharknado four that worked out in this one takes place in Vegas and now we have five we've timed jump five years Asterix has developed a system to keep the world safe from Shark NATO's. But alas, I was impressed the opening is is really good. And I timed it. And I looked at the time and 19 minutes before the opening credits.

Thunder Levin 58:41

Yeah, we've joked about that each successive movie went longer. The teaser went longer than the previous one. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 58:47

yeah. But that was a great teaser with the car and the parachutes. And

Thunder Levin 58:51

the thing about the fourth one, his I came up with an idea once they once they presented the title that they wanted it to be called The Force Awakens, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea for a promo that we would run months before the movie came out, because you know how the Force Awakens ends with Rey climbing all those endless steps and then she meets Luke Skywalker on the hilltop. She holds out the lightsaber helicopter shot and and the end, right, so I wanted to do this promo for Sharknado four before anybody knew what the title was going to be to. To reveal what the title would be is we would start with Cassie Scerbo as Nova probably at Vasquez Rocks, which is a famous location out in the desert near Los Angeles, climbing the rocks, which started on a feat we do, we would do it shot by shot the same as start the Star Wars ending and we would show her feet going up and up up this mountain. And then finally she would come out at the top of the hill and there would be this figure in a hoodie and he would turn around and pull the hoodie back and it would be thin She would reach into her bag and pull out the chainsaw and hold it to him. And then we would cut to Sharknado, the fourth awakens, and everybody thought that was a great idea. And then Cassie Skirball ended up not being in the movie, and we couldn't shoot that. And that that was one of my greatest disappointments related to Sharknado. That would

Jeff Dwoskin 1:00:18

have been great, because you wouldn't know what it was. You got it. You got her the end, but the very, very end,

Thunder Levin 1:00:23

but Well, it wasn't actually her. No, you wouldn't know. It would be an actual stealth ad because you'd see these feet and you'd see this girl walking up and you wouldn't see who it was at first. And so people would wouldn't know quite what it was. And they'd be watching it and hopefully it would, it would intrigue them what's going on here. And wait, this seems kind of like the Star Wars thing. And then for it to be Sharknado I just thought it would have been hilarious. And alas, we did not get to do it.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:00:49

Oh, it could have been would have been. This one features Gilbert Godfried. And many NATO's you've upped it no more why not just water base NATO's now we had boulder fire hail lightning cow and oil. NATO's Yep. So many NATO's Yeah, that

Thunder Levin 1:01:07

was though that was the marching orders. For the fourth one, I was kind of to be honest, I was a bit disillusioned. I thought we should have gone international for the fourth one. And they wanted to milk one more domestic Sharknado. I thought it was a mistake, because we ended up just sort of, I thought covering familiar territory and having to resort to these other kinds of NATO's, you know, which were I guess were sort of clever. But they weren't Sharknado. Us. And I don't know, it just it just felt like we were starting to stretch a thin whereas we could have done some new interesting stuff. And I had proposed a lot of new interesting character development that they wouldn't let us get into. I had suggested that, in fact, I wrote the script this way. And it ended up being changed afterwards. My version had Nova in it, and it's five years later, and they think April is dead. And Nova has been helping to raise Gil, and they're living on this farm, and Finn and Nova has long simmering sexual tension, because simmered higher, after five years of her serving as a surrogate mother to his son. And when they're in the house in the tornado, he rescues her through a hole in the floor and pulls her into the house. And they finally kiss and we build up all this tension. And finally, they kiss and then the house crashes to the ground, like 30 seconds later, April walks through the door to help rescue them. So Finn has this emotional whiplash, where he's finally put his memories of April to rest, and it looks like he's going to have a future with Nova. And then it turns out that April's alive, and I thought that was just great material to mine, and then it didn't happen. So

Jeff Dwoskin 1:02:58

that would have been great. I can I can picture that. In that scenario is Gary Busey, he's still a top scientist and as April a terminator.

Thunder Levin 1:03:06

Yeah. Well, she was still Robo April. And her father was a top scientist. I didn't know who was going to play her father, when I was writing it.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:03:14

Right. Cool. This one had a lot of Terminator Wizard of Oz, not a good themes. Yeah, what as this movie was sort of finishing up what led you to not be caught not to go on to write five and six?

Thunder Levin 1:03:28

Well, as you may have guessed, from those two, what could have bins is that I was a bit getting a bit disillusioned with the process as each movie went along. And the franchise became more and more popular more and more of a pop culture phenomenon. The executives were trusting me less and less, which I found kind of ironic. The guy who had created this in the first place was being told how to make it more successful instead of letting me do my thing. And by the fourth one, that had just become very frustrating. They did a market research study sci fi commissioned a market research study after the third movie to find out why Sharknado was popular. And then they had the results of this market research study. And they were like, here this here it is in black and white, we ask people when you watch Sharknado Are you watching it for crazy shark kills or for character development? And what is somebody going to say? When they're asked why they're watching Sharknado Of course, they're gonna save for the crazy shark kills on the cameos. We don't watch Sharknado for character development. The point is, you have to have characters that you're invested in carrying you through the length of the movie, or you're gonna lose interest. It can't just be cameos and crazy shark gills. That's the special sauce. That makes it fun. But you have to have something that holds your interest along the way. And by the fourth one, they were like No, no, forget about all that character stuff. We just want you to add in all sorts of different NATO's and All these cameos and all these pop culture references, the funny thing is in the first movie, they wanted me to cut all the pop culture references that I had put in, because you know, pop culture references, they become quickly dated. Now my argument is if you use classic pop culture references, they don't become dated. So you don't do things that happened last year, you do things that happened 20 years ago, that are part of pop culture, right, that have cemented their place in pop culture. So that's why you can do Star Wars references and Star Trek references and jaws references, but you don't do

Jeff Dwoskin 1:05:31

After Earth references After Earth references.

Thunder Levin 1:05:36

And so by the fourth movie, they'd gone the other way. And were forcing me to put in pop culture references that were way too recent and that weren't classic in any way. And that didn't really feed into the story. And so there there was all of that coming at the same time that I was working on another script. And by the way, changes had been made to my script for the fourth one without my knowledge. And that also kind of bothered me a little I showed up on the first day of shooting in the fourth one. And they were shooting scenes that didn't sound anything, the plot of the scene was what I'd written, but the dialog had changed. And a lot of the details had changed. And that kind of put me off a bit. And then I had another project that I was working on around the time that the fifth one would have started. I was frustrated. And the asylum was frustrated with me being frustrated, and we just sort of came to a mutual decision that it would be really best to step away at that point. Yeah, yeah. I

Jeff Dwoskin 1:06:41

mean, it sounds like the survey that they presented, you was just full of loaded questions.

Thunder Levin 1:06:46

It was put there was a push with it. In politics, they call it a push poll.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:06:49

Right? Commonly, when people who don't know how to actually write surveys, they get the answers they want. Because that's how they know how to write the questions. So have you watched five and six? I did. Okay. I won't ask for your review. But okay,

Thunder Levin 1:07:04

I'll tell you my review. I didn't like five at all, except for the opening. I thought the Raiders of Lost Ark opening that they did was something I would have liked to have done very much. And I enjoyed that. I didn't really care for the rest of the movie. The sixth one. i There were there were actually a lot of pieces of that that I enjoyed. Plus I'm in it. So I

Jeff Dwoskin 1:07:22

have it. Here in three, two, right? You're in one. Yeah. I'm

Thunder Levin 1:07:25

in tooth. I'm in two, three and six. Excellent. So it was nice that they had Yeah. And yeah, yeah. And it was in the last scene, which was, I think the last or almost the last thing they shot. And it was a nice way to wrap it up. And it was the only time I ever spoke in any of my cameos. And it was nice. Coming back to the set and seeing seeing everybody that I'd known for for all those years. That's cool.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:07:48

All right. Well, at least he had a nice bow on it ended on good terms. So what do you what are you working on now? What's next for thunder 11?

Thunder Levin 1:07:56

Well, I've got a bunch of projects that the pandemic kind of threw a few monkey wrenches my way. In February of 2020, a project that I had been developing for a while called Dead beard, the zombie pirate musical had just found its financing. And we had scheduled a meeting with the investors for the middle of March to finalize the deal. And they it was an investment group from New York, and they were flying out for something else. And we were going to meet in LA to finalize the financing deal for for dead beer and the strangest thing happened, the world ended. And that whole deal fell apart. And so now we're sort of rejiggering and we're in the process of trying to put together a new deal to make dead beer the zombie pirate musical

Jeff Dwoskin 1:08:48

that sounds like a really fascinating idea. I will keep my eyes I noticed on your IMDB that you did a story by and I and Zirin did story by zombie tidal wave. Right. directed

Thunder Levin 1:09:02

right. That was the project I was working on. That would have conflicted with Sharknado five. Got it. I mean, I actually wrote several drafts of that script but then later on it was it was changed significantly and so I ended up with just the the shared story credit with ion but yeah, that I was working on that for like a year. But yeah, so so we've got dead beer the zombie pirate musical. I've got a serious science fiction film. I'm trying to get going called Star Child and I've got a new TV series that I'm just putting the finishing touches on now that we'll be trying to sell to the to the streamers in the next couple of months.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:09:41

All right, that sounds exciting. Where can people keep up with you on the socials?

Thunder Levin 1:09:45

I am on Twitter at Thunder 11 I'm on Facebook facebook.com/thunder 11 official

Jeff Dwoskin 1:09:52

awesome. I can't thank you enough for hanging out with me. I really had a blast. Nice talking through all these new movies with you. And hearing from the writer was good insight. I appreciate that. You bet.

Thunder Levin 1:10:05

Thank you. All right,

Jeff Dwoskin 1:10:07

how amazing was thunder? 11 How awesome was that conversation? I hope you love Sharknado as much as I do and that you got so much out of that or that converted you and now you love Sharknado more than ever before. Well with the interview over that can only mean one thing I know it's time for another trending hashtag from the family of hashtags. That hashtag round up, download the free always free hashtag roundup app at the iTunes App Store or Google Play Store. Follow us at hashtag round up on Twitter tweet along with us and one day one of your tweets may show up on a future episode of Classic conversations, fame and fortune awaits you. The hashtag for this episode is #AddSharksToMoviesOrTV not only was inspired by under 11 My guest but this is a hashtag from the good folks at sci fi tags a weekly Game On hashtag roundup that had thunder lovin as a guest host of this game #AddSharksToMoviesOrTV and master Jedi Mara thromb sci fi tags was kind enough to introduce me to Thunder that's how that happened so awesome for that huh? Thank you the whole team at sci fi tags for that all right #AddSharksToMoviesOrTV the ultimate shark mashup movie you mash up sharks anything sharks with a movie title or something movies or anything TV related and charcoal arity ensues tweet around tag us at Jeff Dwoskin show on Twitter I'll show you some Twitter love in the meantime here are some #AddSharksToMoviesOrTV tweets for inspiration Raiders of the Lost shark you're gonna need a bigger Love Boat eight prey shark These are amazing #AddSharksToMoviesOrTV tweets or river shark runs through it the truth about cats and jaws Zanon the sharks of Motorcycle Maintenance Huckleberry Finn caddy shark these are great #AddSharksToMoviesOrTV tweets, shark 54 Where are you Herman's Hammerhead, the saw shark redemption Harry Potter and the Order the great white shark great white sharks can't jump 50 shades shark her shark and law the shark night and our final is a movie quotes from the Terminator rather Sharknado I need your clothes, your boots and your Moto shock that was a horror I apologize for my Terminator impression but that wraps up #AddSharksToMoviesOrTV Whoa, all right, tweet your arm I'll show you some Twitter love all these are retweeted at Jeff Dwoskin show and Twitter show them some Twitter love or the hashtag over the interview over it can only mean one thing. Oh my goodness, Episode 184 has come to a close I want to thank my special guests under 11. And of course I want to thank all of you for coming back week after week. It means the world to me, and I'll see you next time.

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