December 15th, with only 10 days left until Christmas, was the peak of the intense Christmas box office battle.
Even though it had been released for a month, "harry potter and the chamber of secrets" was still going strong, with daily box office numbers increasing by several million, a testament to the IP's appeal.
In a few days, "the lord of the rings: the two towers" would be released, and on Christmas Day, December 25th, Spielberg's "catch me if you can" would also premiere.
Under the pincer attack of these two behemoths, other films were bound to suffer, so unless absolutely necessary, no film wanted to be released during this period.
Just as movie fans across North America were anticipating "the lord of the rings," hundreds of cinemas in major cities like Los Angeles, New York, and Houston changed their promotional displays.
A brand new poster appeared, showing a towering tornado sweeping through the city, and, strangely, several shark heads emerging from the tornado. "sharknado" had been released without a sound.
For a film with an investment of only 1.5 million US dollars, pre-release promotion was impossible; the promotional budget alone would exceed that amount.
In the evening in Los Angeles, high school student White brought two of his buddies to the cinema near his home. His sister worked there and could get them free movie tickets.
He walked to the front desk and tapped on the window: "Carol, give me three tickets."
A curly-haired girl emerged from the back, complaining with some dissatisfaction: "White, you're coming too often. If this continues, I'll be discovered."
"How is that possible? So many people come in and out of the cinema every day. Don't worry, no one will find out, and it's only three tickets."
"No, not many people are watching these days, so it's easy to get caught. I don't want to lose my job over a few tickets. If you want to watch, go ask Mom for money!"
White immediately put on a bitter face, quietly pointing not far behind him: "Please, sister, you don't want me to lose face in front of my friends, do you? I already boasted to them."
"At most, when I get my allowance, I'll pay you back. Hurry up, while no one is here."
Carol was still unwilling: "But you've already seen all the recent movies. Let's wait until 'the lord of the rings: the return of the king' is released."
"No, don't try to fool me. I saw the new poster, that movie called 'sharknado.' Hurry up, my dear sister."
"Carol, what are you doing?" A loud shout came from afar.
"Nothing, Mr. Frosta."
"Alright, take the tickets and get out. My boss is coming to check!"
"Wait, and popcorn and coke."
"Here you go, hurry, hurry!"
Inside the cinema, there were only eight or nine people sparsely seated. For a movie with no fame, no promotion, and no big stars, only Ryan Reynolds had a bit of popularity among young people.
This configuration attracting eight or nine people was already quite a lot; in other release slots, there might only be two or three people.
"I have a feeling this is going to be a disaster movie," White said to his friends.
As a shark logo flew by, the AK Films logo appeared, and the movie officially began.
On the vast sea, a fishing boat was sailing. The captain was discussing shark hunting business with his partner. Within a few minutes, the originally bright sky suddenly became overcast. Sharks with an extremely plastic feel leaped out of the sea, capsizing the fishing boat.
Just the opening alone made the audience frown.
"White, I have a bad feeling. Why is this boat so small? Two people dare to go shark hunting? And that shark is too crude."
Then the scene switched to a beach, and bikini-clad beauties made the young, strong lads' eyes light up. The director certainly understood his audience.
However, the sharknado immediately appeared and began to make landfall from the beach. A shark suddenly lunged into the bar where the protagonists were hiding.
Then a blonde with big waves picked up a pool cue and impaled the shark with one shot. Her terrifying arm strength instantly stunned the audience.
"What the hell!"
"Did you see that? She actually impaled the shark!"
"You're missing the point, it's the sharks flying!"
The movie continued, the sharknado's power increased, and it began to attack the city. The surprisingly cheap special effects constantly bombarded the audience's nerves.
The male protagonist led people to escape. Seawater poured down from the sky, and cars sped on the highway. At first glance, it seemed plausible, but then a rubber strip suddenly appeared on the car window.
Confused voices immediately arose from the audience: "Automatic car wash? Is this the rain effect?"
The seawater brought by the sharknado gradually submerged the city, but in reality, it didn't even cover the car wheels. And even in such shallow water, a large number of sharks were rapidly swimming and attacking pedestrians, with extremely fake blood that was unbearable to watch.
Gradually, even sewers and drainpipes were spraying out sharks—yes, spraying them—and even small sharks flowed out of the faucets.
The movie continued to its end with this extremely absurd plot and special effects.
When Ryan Reynolds raised a chainsaw and, like a Kamen Rider, jumped more than ten meters high to split the last shark in two, the movie finally ended.
What an international bad movie!
At this moment, the few audience members collectively leaned back in a tactical retreat, took a deep breath, frowned, and squinted their eyes to relieve their ravaged nerves.
A moment later, gasps, breaths, exclamations, and curses filled the screening hall.
"My eyes! My eyes!"
"Why would a movie like this appear on the big screen?"
"Please tell me who the director is, I'm going to kill him!"
"White, watching this movie feels like eating durian with a can of fermented herring, with a three-month-old stinky sock next to it."
To everyone's surprise, White's eyes lit up as if he had found a treasure: "I like it!"
"What! Are you crazy?"
"Of course not, I'm going to recommend this movie to Jennifer, to Ben, to Harvis, I'm going to recommend it to everyone, I can't be the only one to go blind!"
The two friends thought this made a lot of sense: "I'm going to post it on the forum and let everyone enjoy this terrible movie!"
On its first day of release, sharknado only grossed over 1 million US dollars, not even close to harry potter's numbers.
But at the same time, discussions about it appeared online.
Eric certainly wouldn't spend a lot of money, but a few hundred thousand was fine, so Bema Hardy had already hired a large number of internet trolls in advance.
On the first day of the movie's release, they posted on forums with high daily active users and also spammed reviews and recommendations on Yahoo, Movies, BOM, and IMDB.
In this era, using online trolls for promotion was still a rare method; television, magazines, and newspapers were the mainstream.
In the evening, Eric opened Los Angeles' largest local forum, scrolled casually, and found three posts about "sharknado" on one screen.
"This year's best movie is born — 'sharknado'!"
"I've never seen a movie like this, it shocked me more than harry potter!"
"'sharknado,' a masterpiece worthy of film history!"
Clicking on the content and scanning through it, Eric couldn't tell whether it was praise or criticism, and could only lament that internet trolls in this era were very trustworthy and didn't just copy and paste.