newsmakers

newsmakers

‘Sharknado 2’ whipped up storm of viewers, tweets

NEW YORK

Syfy says its sequel to the horror spoof “Sharknado” snapped up 3.9 million viewers Wednesday night.

The film, officially titled “Sharknado 2: The Second One,” nearly tripled the 1.37 million viewers who saw last summer’s premiere of the original “Sharknado” film.

Meanwhile, Nielsen estimates that 5.5 million people saw one or more of the 581,000 tweets posted during the airing. At one point, the film held all top 10 trending topics in the United States. By comparison, 318,000 tweets about the first “Sharknado” film were posted when it premiered last July.

In campy fashion, “Sharknado 2” moved the action from Los Angeles to New York City, which was besieged by its own fearsome storm of rain and falling sharks.

Syfy said the film will air again Saturday and Sunday.

‘Godfather of Makeup’ dies at 92

NEW YORK

Dick Smith, the Oscar-winning “Godfather of Makeup” who amused, fascinated and terrified moviegoers by devising unforgettable transformations for Marlon Brando in “The Godfather” and Linda Blair in “The Exorcist” among many others, has died. He was 92.

Smith, the first makeup artist to win an Academy Award for lifetime achievement, died Wednesday night in California of natural causes. His death was confirmed to The Associated Press by the president of the Make-up Artists and Hairstylists Guild, Sue Cabral-Ebert, who declined to give further details.

Widely regarded as the master in his field, Smith helped pioneer such now-standard materials as liquid foam latex that make special effects more realistic and spectacular. He also was known and loved for his generosity, whether exchanging letters about his craft with a teenage J.J. Abrams or mentoring future Oscar-winner special-effects artist Rick Baker, who in 2011 presented Smith his honorary statuette.

Associated Press