Syfy forecasts Sharknado 3, Spin

US cable channel Syfy has given the greenlight to a third installment in the Sharknado disaster telemovie franchise and an adaptation of Robert Charles Wilson’s novel Spin.

Sharknado 3 will once again come from US producer The Asylum and will again star Ian Ziering and Tara Reid as its leads. Anthony C. Ferrante again directs, with the script coming from Thunder Levin.

Debuting in July, the film will see a ‘sharknado’ – a shark-filled tornado – tearing apart Washington D.C. and the Eastern Seaboard.

The Sharknado franchise is NBCUniversal-owned Syfy’s biggest telefilm property – both Sharknado and Sharknado: The Second One broke ratings records in the US. Sharknado 2 is the channel’s largest-rated original movie with 3.9 million total viewers.

Spin, meanwhile, will be a six-part miniseries based on Wilson’s novel about a young scientist trying to save Earth from a mysterious, impenetrable cloud that threatens to destroy human life.

Fight Club writer Jim Uhls will adapt the novel, with NBCU subsidiary Universal Cable Productions producing alongside Rob Morrow’s Bits and Pieces Pictures Company and Olympus Pictures.

The Spin novel is part of a three-book series, meaning Syfy could turn the show into a franchise if the first is successful.

Spin is latest Syfy scripted drama, coming after other such as 12 Monkeys, Z Nation and The Expanse.