The Twitter Success of Syfy's 'Sharknado' Isn't Translating to Huge Ratings

The so-bad-it's-great "mockbuster" "Sharknado" -- which, as promised by its delightful title, is about a tornado filled with sharks that ravages Los Angeles (something we weren't warned about in "An Inconvenient Truth"), became a huge hit on Twitter as it premiered on Syfy last night. Live-tweeting/mocking/celebrating of the made-for-TV movie, which stars Tara Reid and Ian Ziering and comes from low-budget experts The Asylum, became a spontaneous phenomenon that united cinephiles, stoners, celebrities and everyone else who stumbled across the broadcast in social media delight, bumping "#sharknado" up to a trending topic.

The Twitter love did not, however, translate to identical ratings. According to the LA Times, early Nielsen numbers have "Sharknado" at an audience of just over 1 million people and only a 0.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic. In comparison,?March's Erik Estrada-led "Chupacabra vs. the Alamo" garnered a 0.3 rating for adults 18-49 -- and, unlike "Sharknado," that feature wasn't generating nearly 5,000 tweets a minute. Still, the social media success of "Sharknado" has led Syfy to schedule an encore presentation of the film for Thursday, July 18 at 7pm.

Below, some of our favorite comments from the "Sharknado" Twitter takeover.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/indieWIRENews/~3/IGJd68Pm4_0/sharknado-twitter-phenom

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