Ziering caught in Sharknado’s net
BERENICE BAUTISTA
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEXICO CITY — The memes and mockery abound, but has conquered audiences, netted dozens of celebrity cameos such as George R.R. Martin, Ne-Yo and Kelly Osbourne, and has turned into an annual event. The fifth instalment of the TV movie series about airborne sharks with new celebrities and international settings.
“As a viewer I appreciate it because it’s fun, it’s escapism, it’s pure entertainment. But how do you explain it? I don’t know,” said series star Ian Ziering, who along with Tara Reid fights a tornado of sharks with a chainsaw. “Major motion picture studios spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to capture some of whatever it is that makes our little movie globally popular.”
“It’s kind of like the secret sauce: No one really knows for sure. I wish I knew, I would be making my own movie,” he said with a laugh.
premieres Sunday on Space. It finds Ziering’s Fin Shepherd, an expert in “sharknados,” called upon by governments around the world to fight the crazy phenomenon.
Filming took the cast and crew to Europe, Asia and Australia. This year’s cameos include Olivia Newton-John, Bret Michaels, Clay Aiken, Charo and the Mexican w e a t h e r p e r s o n a l i t y Ya n e t Garcia.
“Now that we’ve become a global movie it’s not just people who want to be in the movie, there’s countries who have solicited,” Ziering said.
The plot has been nonsensical from the beginning and has created many memes on the web. Even Ziering found it ridiculous at the beginning.
“When I read the first movie, I thought It was terrible. I told my wife that I couldn’t do this movie, that it would be the end of my career,” said the actor, who starred in the popular ’90s TV series
“I am an actor, but my most important job is provider of my family. I didn’t have very much confidence in the movie, but I did it anyway to provide for my family.”
The love of the fans has led to a yearly instalment since 2013, all of them directed by Anthony C. Ferrante.
At this point the only way Ziering would stop being part of would be “if Fin Sheperd ever got eaten and is not able to chainsaw his way out of the shark.”