Tara Reid in 'Sharknado' S**tstorm

Tara Reid is coming back -- kinda sorta -- for the "Sharknado" sequel, according to producers, but it's not what they privately said less than a week ago ... TMZ has learned.

The honchos who made the shark flick had a big reaction to TMZ's story over the weekend, that Tara Reid won't be invited back for round 2. A rep for Asylum -- the production company -- tweeted, "@Tara Reid is awesome ... We'd be lucky to have her back for the sequel."

But we know there was a meeting last Wednesday in which Asylum exec David Latt talked about the sequel and zeroed in on the return of Ian Ziering -- and that's it. There's no script ... it's all conceptual, but the talk was all about Ian -- and NOT Tara. We're told the clear message was that she was out.

Latt now says if Tara doesn't do the flick it's because she's turned THEM down since the film has opened so many doors for her.

Don't get us wrong ... we really like Tara, and think she'd be fun in part 2.