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Syfy’s ‘Sharknado’ has exploded into a full-blown cultural phenomenon

TAKEN BY STORM: “Sharknado,” a so-bad-it’s-good movie about sharks raining on LA, whipped Twitter users into a frenzy when it debuted on Syfy Wednesday night. (
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Eat your heart out, Jaws!

“Sharknado” was supposed to be a ridiculous made-for-TV movie about a tornado of sharks that rains on Los Angeles — but it exploded into a full-blown cultural phenomenon, raking in a record number of tweets for the Syfy channel and raising the possibility of a prequel.

The corny disaster flick — starring has-beens Tara Reid of “American Pie” and Ian Ziering of “Beverly Hills 90210” — got 5,000 tweets a minute at its peak on Wednesday at 11 p.m., roughly a fourth of what the Super Bowl garnered.

At the movie’s climax, Ziering hacks his way out of a shark’s belly with a chain saw. It’s that good.

Even celebrities took to Twitter to air their snark.

“OMG omg OMG #sharknado,” wrote actress Mia Farrow. “Tomorrow I’ll pick up a chainsaw.”

NBC newsman Chuck Todd tweeted: “I follow about a thousand folks. Every one of them tweeting about SharkNado.”

The movie’s screenwriter, Thunder Levin, told The Post he was thrilled by the reaction.

“This movie was something we wanted to have fun with and kinda be over the top. Apparently, people have caught on to that. The reaction to it has been great. I really couldn’t be happier,” he said.

He added he dreamed up the idea after studying global-warming patterns.

“To be honest, there’s a reality and science basis to everything . . . I thought, if the ocean was flooding the city, why wouldn’t sharks start swimming into the city, where the feeding was good?”

“And the next logical thing would be, you know, hurricanes spin off into tornados . . . So why couldn’t they suck up sharks?” Levin said.

“It’s perfectly logical!”

Levin now says he wants to make a sequel but hasn’t yet met with Syfy execs.

“If we were to do [a sequel], perhaps we’d go with [a] prequel,” he said.

He has so far heard from many fans — but also a few science geeks griping about the flick’s accuracy.

“I’ve had a couple times where people have called me complaining about the meteorological inaccuracies of my work,” Levin said. “With a movie called ‘Sharknado,’ I don’t think they’re taking it in the proper spirit.”

Reps from Syfy said the movie drew 387,000 mentions on social media, beating out the famous “Game of Thrones” episode “Red Wedding,” which drew 241,000.

Syfy execs met yesterday morning and pushed up the scheduled re-airing of the shark sensation to next Thursday at 7 p.m.

The flick got 1.4 million viewers, most between ages 24 and 54.

Additional reporting by Michael Starr