Some stories are powerful enough to convince you that alternate universes really do exist. Take this one in The Hollywood Reporter, which notes that prior to becoming president of the United States, Donald Trump had signed on to play the president . . . in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No. Somewhere out there, in a universe we’ll never know, Trump’s political aspirations peaked with a made-for-TV horror series, where he quickly got the POTUS bug out of his system after a few days on a film set where everyone called him “Mr. President.”
Alas, talks never materialized into a surefire contract, perhaps because Trump and his team handled the potential deal with their signature competence and finesse.
According to David Latt, the co-founder of Sharknado production company The Asylum, Trump said yes to playing the president almost immediately after The Asylum made the offer. “He was thrilled to be asked,” Latt tells T.H.R.
Funnily enough, Trump wasn’t even the first choice to play the lead politician. Producers initially had their hearts set on Sarah Palin, but negotiations fell apart. It was Ian Ziering, the Sharknado lead and former cast member on Celebrity Apprentice, who suggested Trump for the role.
Gerald Webb, the casting director, says talks got “pretty far.” The Sharknado team then sent a contract to Trump’s lawyer, Michael D. Cohen—whom you may be familiar with thanks to this viral interview, or headlines declaring him as yet another Trump-inner-circler who’s been pulled into the Russia investigations.
But all the serious talks soon went quiet, with Cohen later revealing to Latt that Trump was seriously considering running for president—and that now “might not be the best time” to pop up in a Sharknado film, despite Trump’s rich and varied history of schlocky cameos. Asylum eventually decided to give the role instead to billionaire Shark Tank judge Mark Cuban, who is also a noted Trump nemesis. The decision apparently infuriated Trump’s team.
“We immediately heard from Trump's lawyer,” Latt tells T.H.R. “He basically said, ‘How dare you? Donald wanted to do this. We’re going to sue you! We’re going to shut the entire show down!’” (For the record, Cohen tells T.H.R. he does not recall this particular exchange.) Despite the threat, Sharknado 3 premiered in July 2015 as planned—just over a month after Trump announced his candidacy.
Had Trump accepted the role, we would have been treated to such scenes as the current president of the United States shooting down flying sharks in the halls of the White House and shouting, “This is for America, baby!” Instead, another universe is enjoying another timeline—one in which Trump enjoyed his Sharknado presidency and moved on.
