Tara Reid Officially Set To Appear In ‘Sharknado 2: The Second One’

Tara Reid is on board for the Sharknado sequel, meaning it’s full steam ahead for the continuation of the surprise cult hit.

The SyFy movie debuted last year as a knowingly campy nod to cheesy science fiction horror movies of decades past, and found a surprisingly large audience. Sharknado ended up bringing big ratings to SyFy in the original showing and encore performances, and even got a score of 82 percent on the notoriously difficult Rotten Tomatoes.

Now, with original stars Ian Ziering and Tara Reid on board, the sequel is gaining considerable momentum.

Sharknado 2: The Second One is set in New York City, where a freak storm unleashes a Sharknado on the population. Fin (Ziering) and April (Reid) have to come in and save the day.

“Sharknado was an extraordinary ‘perfect storm’ which captured the attention of movie fans across the globe,” said Thomas Vitale, executive vice president of programming and original movies at Syfy. “You couldn’t go anywhere without hearing about Sharknado! By reassembling the creative team — and dropping sharks onto New York’s iconic sites — we’re unleashing yet another ‘fin’ wave of shark-mania.”

Rumors of a sequel started almost immediately after the original Sharknado debuted, but reports conflicted on whether Tara Reid would be on board.

Ziering was a little more enthusiastic, though he admitted he joined on to the original movie for practical reasons rather than artistic ones.

“I was really apprehensive, but as an actor I get my insurance from the Screen Actor’s Guild by union, and you have to make so much every year to get that type 1 insurance,” Ian told ABC News. “Halfway through the script, I said to my wife, ‘Honey, I don’t know about this.’ She didn’t miss a beat, she said, ‘Look, you’re going to have two babies [by] this spring, you need to go to work.’ ”

But after his wife’s pleading, Ziering said he would “take one for the team” and join the film.

Ian Ziering and Tara Reid can be seen in Sharknado 2: The Second One when it airs in July