'Sharknado 2' Wants You--And Your Money

The producers of "Sharknado 2" are hoping that they've found a way to recapture the magic that made their original movie a big, if brief, social-media phenomenon. The producers have turned to crowdfunding site Indiegogo in an attempt to turn tweets into dollars, introducing a project to produce a special scene for the film only if fans are willing to fork over $50,000.

When the original "Sharknado" aired on Syfy last year, it set records for the number of tweets that mentioned it during its air time. Convinced that all the tweets meant that they had a monster hit on their hands, Syfy and the film's producers attempted to capitalize. Unfortunately, the aggressive marketing of the schlocky movie—which included multiple encore airings on Syfy, a special theater showing of the movie, and the quick announcement of a sequel—failed to generate much interest. This latest move looks like an attempt to harness the power of online buzz, the only thing that "Sharknado" had going for it in the first place.

Of course, if you give the producers money, you get more than just the satisfaction of knowing that you're supporting art. You also get a gift, in a relationship to the size of your donation, in appreciation. A donation of $15, for example, gets you a "shout-out on social media on premiere night," and $35 gets you a DVD or Blu-ray copy of the film in advance of the premiere. Give the producers $25,000 and you'll get an Associate Producer credit on the film.

Four days into the campaign, the project had only received about $4,000, but the good news for the producers is that even if the project doesn't reach its goal of $50,000, they get to keep whatever money they raise anyway.