Will Box Office Mean the End of 'Sharknado'?

Film journalists are no doubt hoping that last weekend's box-office results indicate the last time that they'll have to write about "Sharknado."

The Syfy original film made the unprecedented transition to the big screen for midnight showings on Aug. 2, but audience enthusiasm was far less than phenomenal.

"Sharknado" first came to the attention of the media because its original airing on July 16 inspired a large amount of traffic on Twitter. The actual viewership of the movie was small, though, even by the standards of Syfy originals. Spurred by the social-media response, Syfy charged forward with the marketing of the movie, adding encore airings and announcing plans for a sequel. The encore showings drew progressively larger audiences, with the third airing pulling more than 2 million viewers; the number put "Sharknado" on a par with successful Syfy originals such as "Sharktopus."

On Aug. 2, Syfy teamed with Regal Cinemas to put "Sharknado" in 200 theaters around the country for midnight showings. The hope was that the movie would turn into a cult phenomenon in the vein of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."

Response to the theater events turned out to be as underwhelming as the initial TV airings. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the showings took in less than $200,000. That works out to about $1,000 per theater, and the $12 ticket price means that the audience size averaged about 83 people per theater. Given that some big-city theaters reported sold-out showings, there were apparently some showings in other markets with a lot of empty seats.