Low-budget B movie studio The Asylum has built a library of more than 200 original productions since its founding in 1997. Last year, one of them hit it big.

The success of Asylum’s “Sharknado” on Syfy surprised a lot of people, but after hundreds of thousands of generated tweets and more than 7 million total viewers, no one will be taken off-guard by “Sharknado 2,” premiering July 30.

“We’re very lucky in that we have the big NBC machine behind ‘Sharknado 2,’” said Asylum producer David Michael Latt. “Partnering with NBC and Syfy gives us this incredible access to this insane amount of talent, ideas, etc. ‘Sharknado’ is an institution at the moment. For now it’s a very important commodity for the network… [They’ll have] a hundred people all involved to really exploit it and make it available to everyone on an international level.”

The question is, can that same magical storm of social media that propelled “Sharknado” to record ratings for Syfy repeat itself? Even Latt admits that “no one knows how to tame the beast of social media. Everyone talks about it and has theories about it, but no one knows how to do it… We’re the first to say, ‘we don’t know what the hell we’re doing.’”

But that’s not stopping The Asylum from trying. In a pointed attempt to, according to a recent statement from the company, engage fans “before the tweets start pouring in,” the studio has partnered with Indiegogo on a crowdfunding campaign offering viewers a special bonus scene in exchange for $50,000 in contributions. Donors can receive prizes ranging from a copy of the film’s screenplay to the chance to actually appear in the mystery scene – and even choose whether their character dies horribly or becomes a hero. Anyone who donates $25,000 will receive an associate producer credit on “Sharknado 2” plus a VIP trip to the red carpet premiere.

“When people feel invested in the show and can call it their own, they get more animated about it, they talk about it, they tweet about it,” said Latt. “This was just one of the ways of doing it. 50,000 isn’t going to make or break anything. It’s just a call to arms.”

If done by almost any other legitimate production, such a stunt would raise an eyebrow or three, but “Sharknado” was never about artistic integrity. The buzz about the first movie was more fun than the movie itself, and it’s hard to imagine “The Second One” being any other way. It’s certainly off to a good start. In the time it took to write this article, its Indiegogo total jumped from $19,000 to $25,000, and there are still more than 40 days to go. At this rate, the campaign will almost definitely earn far, far more than the amount required to unlock the scene. Where will all that money go?

“We don’t want to give away too much,” reads The Asylum’s Indiegogo copy, “but here’s what I can tell you: there will be sharks, chainsaws, and chainsaws being used in the vicinity of sharks.”

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