Twisters is a 2024 American disaster film directed by Lee Isaac Chung from a screenplay by Mark L. Smith, based on a story by Joseph Kosinski. It is a standalone sequel to the 1996 film Twister. The film stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, and Sasha Lane.
| Twisters | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Lee Isaac Chung |
| Screenplay by | Mark L. Smith |
| Story by | Joseph Kosinski |
| Based on | |
| Produced by |
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| Starring |
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| Cinematography | Dan Mindel |
| Edited by | Terilyn A. Shropshire |
| Music by | Benjamin Wallfisch |
Production | |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 122 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $155–200 million[2][3] |
| Box office | $123.2 million[4][5] |
Twisters premiered in London on July 8, 2024, and was released internationally by Warner Bros. Pictures on July 10, and in the United States by Universal Pictures on July 19. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and has grossed $123 million worldwide.
College student Kate Carter works in Oklahoma with a storm chasers team that includes Javi, Addy, Praveen, and her boyfriend, Jeb. Alongside a Dorothy V doppler, the team launches barrels of sodium polyacrylate solution into a tornado in hopes to reduce its intensity and secure funding for further research. However, the crew is caught in the middle as it grows into an EF5. Addy, Praveen, and Jeb are killed, while Kate and Javi survive.
Five years later, Kate works at a NOAA office in New York City. Javi, working for tornado mobile radar company Storm Par, offers Kate a one-week position with his team to test a new tornado scanning system. Kate only accepts after Javi sends a news report about a tornado destroying a town. Kate and Javi join the Storm Par team in Oklahoma, which includes Javi's business partner Scott. Popular YouTube storm chaser Tyler Owens, known as the "Tornado Wrangler", also arrives in Oklahoma looking to capitalize on a predicted tornado outbreak. Tyler is joined by his crew of Boone, Dani, Dexter, and Lily, as well as English journalist Ben. Storm Par and Tyler's crew chase a tornado which has touched down in a nearby wind farm.
Kate suffers a panic attack, rendering her unable to help Javi set up the final scanner; she instead drives away. The team successfully launches the scanning system for the next tornado, but strong winds blow out the third scanner. Kate and Javi barely escape and drive to a nearby tornado-ravaged town to help recovery efforts, along with Tyler's crew. Having dismissed Tyler and his team as glory hounds, Kate is surprised to learn they use merchandise profits to aid tornado victims, while Storm Par investor Marshall Riggs profiteers by purchasing tornado-damaged land.
Tyler invites Kate to a nearby rodeo, where they begin bonding. When a large tornado hits, they take shelter in an empty motel pool. In the aftermath, Kate and Javi argue about Riggs' intentions, causing Javi to blame Kate for their colleagues' deaths. Distraught, Kate retreats to her mother's farm in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. Tyler follows and uncovers Kate's previous research regarding the tornado disruption experiment. Kate initially declines Tyler's offer to help retry the experiment but finally accepts. The next day, they release the solution into a passing tornado, but it fails to dissipate. Using scanning data provided by an apologetic Javi, Kate hypothesizes a change in the experiment to correct a previous oversight, namely adding silver iodide.
The team tracks another tornado developing near El Reno. Javi and Scott's truck nearly overturns, but they escape just as the tornado catches fire after striking an oil refinery. Javi attempts to head to El Reno to help recovery efforts, but Scott pressures him to continue their mission for Riggs. Javi abandons Scott by the road and quits Storm Par. Kate, Tyler, and their team evacuate the townsfolk into shelters and basements. A derailed streetcar traps Tyler. Javi arrives and he and Kate rescue him. The crew and townsfolk hide in a nearby movie theater. Kate drives Tyler's truck into the tornado's center. After a brief struggle with the controls, she launches the solution into the tornado, but the vehicle is overturned. The tornado rips the theater open, nearly pulling Lily out, but Tyler saves her just as the solution takes effect, weakening the tornado. The team rescues Kate and celebrates the dissipating tornado.
Sometime later, Javi drops Kate off at Will Rogers World Airport and promises more research on their successful experiment. As Kate heads for her plane to New York, she repeats Tyler's slogan, "If you feel it, chase it," before a PA announces that strong winds have delayed flights; Tyler appears and reconciles with Kate, and they leave in his truck. A closing montage shows that Kate, Javi, and Tyler have joined in a new business and that Ben's story focused on Kate instead of Tyler.
In 2020, Joseph Kosinski met with Amblin Entertainment and the Kennedy/Marshall Companytopitch a follow-up to the 1996 film Twister revolving around a "new generation" of storm chasers.[6]: 5 In June 2020, Universal Pictures announced it was meeting with writers to develop the reboot, with Frank Marshall attached as a producer and Kosinski in early negotiations as director.[7] Around the same time, the studio rejected plans from Twister actress Helen Hunt to direct a sequel. That version, written by Hunt, Rafael Casal, and Daveed Diggs, who collaborated on the television series Blindspotting, would have followed "all black and brown storm chasers", members of a rocket science club at a historically black college and university.[8][9] In October 2022, Amblin, Universal, and Warner Bros. Pictures met with directors for Twisters, a sequel being fast-tracked for an early 2023 production start after Steven Spielberg, an executive producer of the original film, expressed enthusiasm for script by Mark L. Smith. Filmmaking couple Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Travis Knight, and Dan Trachtenberg were in talks to helm the project, Kosinski having dropped out to direct F1 (2025). The studio reportedly wanted Hunt to reprise her role, with the hopes of the story focusing on the daughter of her and Bill Paxton's characters.[10]
In December 2022, Lee Isaac Chung was hired to direct the now standalone sequel.[12] Chung's pitch to Marshall, Spielberg, and executive producer Jay Sandberg included a presentation that intercut footage from the original film and his own Minari, a semi-autobiographical indie drama that cost $2 million, specifically a scene in which characters experience a tornado watch.[11][13][14] Chung credited his time at Lucasfilm directing an episode of The Mandalorian as accustoming him to projects with lots of visual effects and noted growing up in tornado alley as inspiration.[13][15] In preparation for Twisters, he revisited the original film, Spielberg's Jaws (1975) and War of the Worlds (2005) (described by him as "movies about powerful forces of nature or monstrous things coming at you or looming above you"), and "driving movies" such as The French Connection (1971) and Gone in 60 Seconds (2000).[6]: 9 Character dynamics were influenced by the films of Frank Capra and Howard Hawks, especially It Happened One Night (1934) and The Big Sky (1952).[14][16] Chung was inspired to approach Glen Powell for a lead role after seeing an appearance of his on an episode of the morning show Today; Powell was contacted while filming Anyone but You (2023) in Australia to do a chemistry read with Daisy Edgar-Jones.[6]: 13–14 Cast members attended a "weather boot camp" to learn about tornadoes from meteorologists and storm chasers. The program was organized by meteorologist and former NOAA analyst Kevin Kelleher, a technical advisor on both Twister films.[6]: 6, 12 [17][18] Paxton's son, James, has a cameo as a motel guest who tries driving away from a tornado.[19][20]
Principal photography was initially set to take place outside Atlanta, Georgia, for budgetary reasons. Instead, it commenced in May 2023 in Oklahoma, where the story takes place, marking Chung's return to the state after Minari.[6]: 9–10 [21][22] The move cost the crew work days and resulted in the removal of some storm sequences.[22] Filming was to take place at Prairie Surf Studios for 40 days and in metro Oklahoma City for 50 days.[2] Ultimately, the shoot took 60 days, approximately 70 percent of which was spent capturing driving scenes.[6]: 9 [17] Other locations included the towns of Burbank, Calumet, Cashion, Chickasha, Fairview, Hinton, Kingfisher, Kremlin, El Reno, Midwest City, Okarche, Pawhuska, and Spencer.[2][23] Filming was suspended in July due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike.[24] As six weeks of prep time were necessary to resume production, despite only having three weeks of material to film, the crew began prepping sets before the strike was over.[6]: 11 Production resumed with the strike's conclusion in November 2023 and wrapped the following month.[25][26] Dan Mindel was the cinematographer.[6]: 29
Twisters was shot on 35mm film, at Chung's request after receiving support from Spielberg and Mindel, with Panavision XL cameras and handheld Arri 435s and 235s, using T series, C series, and Primo Anamorphic lenses.[6]: 30 [13] In preparation for the film, Mindel watched Westerns, road movies, and films produced during the Golden Age of Hollywood set in rural America. He listed The Last Picture Show (1971) as an influence on the film's "Americana" style. Dailies were processed in Los Angeles, so the crew could not review their footage for several days. To maintain continuity, Mindel aimed to film under overcast weather, unless the script asked for blue skies.[6]: 30 Because the shoot occurred during tornado season, delays were frequent.[27] "It was happening every three days or so," Chung recalled, "We were always getting shut down—lightning, wind storms, and then storms that were producing tornadoes came through as well."[28] Challenges arose in El Reno due to heat waves, lightning storms, and strong winds, as well as the presence of "a jet engine on set that you could barely talk over" and the need for a bright, hot key light to produce the "feeling of a storm-like sky", according to Chung.[22] A set of an El Reno farmer's market was destroyed by a storm with 80-mile-per-hour winds, forcing the crew to rebuild it only to destroy it again for a scene.[6]: 26–27 [27] The production recruited a former military meteorologist to monitor weather conditions with a squad of radar watchers, and film safety experts enforced protocols for shutting down production and sheltering when necessary.[6]: 10–11 Patrick Sullivan, who worked on the original film's art department, was the production designer.[6]: 22
The prologue was shot during the first week. It utilized practical effects such as hail, rain, and wind machines to stimulate the storm, though the overpass that characters hide under was enclosed in blue screen. While parts of the sequence were filmed on location, the overpass was rebuilt on a makeshift studio backlot near Prairie Surf Studios.[6]: 21, 28 Three locations—Crystal Springs, Stillwater, and El Reno–are ravaged in the film by tornadoes. Scenes set in El Reno were filmed on location, while a 4-block stretch of land in Chickasha stood in for Crystal Springs and Midwest City portrayed Stillwater.[6]: 23–27 Early versions of the script had the Stillwater tornado surround a college baseball game, but Chung suggested changing it to a rodeo.[6]: 24 The pool of the motel where characters take shelter was constructed for the film; a hole was dug out of the motel's lawn and, since the pool is empty, no plumbing was required. After the shoot, the pool was removed and the hole was filled to restore the lawn.[6]: 26 The theater sequence was shot on soundstages at Prairie Surf, using vintage seats from a closed Colorado movie theater and El Reno for its exterior.[6]: 27 [14] It was Chung's decision for the characters to be viewing Frankenstein (1931), a reference to Universal's "monsters" franchise.[14][29] Kate's mother's farmhouse was located in the town of Howe. The accompanying barn was initially a metal shed, which the art department skinned with wood from Missouri to resemble an Oklahoma barn. The barn's interior was built at Prairie Surf.[6]: 27
The film's tornadoes were created using special and visual effects, referencing footage of supercell clouds and real tornadoes shot by technical consultants, including storm chaser Sean Casey. The tornado in the finale was inspired by the 2013 El Reno tornado, the 2021 Western Kentucky tornado, and a wedge tornado that touched Kansas in 2023.[6]: 33–34 [14]
According to Smith, the story incorporates the effects of climate change.[30] However, the film does not mention the issue by name. Chung clarified he "wanted to make sure that we are never creating a feeling that we're preaching a message, because that's certainly not what I think cinema should be about. I think it should be a reflection of the world."[31] Chung said the most challenging part about making Twisters was balancing the tone because he wanted to entertain audiences while simultaneously taking the natural disasters seriously due to their real-world impacts.[22] In June 2023, amid filming, The Oklahoman reported the production budget for Twisters as nearing $200 million.[2] In July 2024, Variety and Deadline Hollywood listed the budget as $155 million before print and advertising costs.[3][32]
Benjamin Wallfisch composed the film's score.[33] The soundtrack, Twisters: The Album, was released on July 19, 2024, through on CD, LP, and digital download by Atlantic Records.[34][35] It features songs from several country acts, including Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, Bailey Zimmerman, Megan Moroney, Tucker Wetmore, Tanner Adell, Jelly Roll, and others.[36][37] Combs' "Ain't No Love in Oklahoma" led the soundtrack as a single on May 16, with few singles released in the subsequent weeks prior to the film's release.[36]
Twisters premiered at Cineworld Leicester Square in London on July 8, 2024. Notably attending the event was Tom Cruise, who worked with Powell on Top Gun: Maverick in 2022.[38] The film also screened at the Taormina Film Fest in Italy in July 2024.[39] The film was released in the United States by Universal Pictures on July 19, 2024, and early in some international markets by Warner Bros. Pictures, beginning on July 10.[40][41]
As of July 21, 2024[update], Twisters has grossed $80.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $42.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $123.2 million.[5][4]
In the United States and Canada, Twisters was initially projected to gross $40–55 million from 4,151 theaters in its opening weekend.[3][42] After making $32.2 million on its first day, including an estimated $10.7 million from Wednesday and Thursday previews, weekend projections were raised to $75 million. It went on to debut to $80.5 million, the best ever opening weekend for a natural disaster movie.[32]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 78% of 272 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The website's consensus reads: "Summoning a storm of spectacle and carried along by the gale force winds of Glen Powell's charisma, Twisters' forecast is splendid with a high chance of thrills."[43] According to the website, critics felt that Chung added "more substance" to the film and praised the film's visuals and "unexpectedly well-handled romantic twist", calling it a "rousing piece of summer blockbuster cinema".[44] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 65 out of 100, based on 55 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[45] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of『A–』on an A+ to F scale, the same score as the first film.[32]
Robbie CollinofThe Daily Telegraph gave it a score of five out of five, writing that it "vastly improves on [the original] in all regards".[46] Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Jordan Hoffman gave the film a "A-" grade, saying "There's a ton of technobabble that you have to take on faith, but Jones and Powell do more than sell it; they make it compelling".[47] IndieWire's David Ehrlich gave the film a "B+" grade and said "And for all of the unearned goodwill that Twisters extends to viral content creators, it still makes one of this summer's most emphatic arguments in favor of the big screen experience".[48]
Owen GleibermanofVariety gave the film a mixed review. He praised the performances of Powell and Edgar-Jones, but suggested the film was not as innovative as the original film given the prevalence of the Internet and actual videos of tornadoes freely available. He wrote, "Staring up at the tornadoes in Twisters, I felt like I'd already seen something exactly like them — and that when it comes to footage of actual tornadoes, I'd already seen something more incredible".[49]
A scientific review in The New York Times pointed out impossibilities with the film's mechanism for dissipating tornadoes, observing that the method suggested would actually require many tons of the chemicals used and require a much longer period of time.[50]
United States
Weather
2020s
