Twisters (film)

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. Serving as a standalone sequel to Twister (1996), the film stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, and Sasha Lane. Its story follows a group of storm chasers who attempt to launch barrels of sodium polyacrylate solution into a tornado with the goal of reducing its intensity.

Twisters premiered at the Cineworld Leicester Square 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.

Plot
Kate Carter works in Oklahoma with storm chasers 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 of reducing its intensity and securing 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 an EF1 tornado that 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, an EF3 that momentarily splits into two, but strong winds blow out the third scanner. Kate and Javi barely escape and drive to the nearby tornado-ravaged town of Crystal Springs 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 in Stillwater, where they begin bonding. When a large, EF4 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, before intensifying to an EF5 heading towards El Reno. 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.

Development
In 2020, Joseph Kosinski met with Amblin Entertainment and the Kennedy/Marshall Company to pitch a follow-up to the 1996 film Twister revolving around a "new generation" of storm chasers. 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. 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. In October 2022, Amblin, Universal, and Warner Bros. 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.



In December 2022, Lee Isaac Chung was hired to direct the now standalone sequel. 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. 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. 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). Character dynamics were influenced by the films of Frank Capra and Howard Hawks, especially It Happened One Night (1934) and The Big Sky (1952). 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. Cast members, announced between March and May 2023, 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. Attributed to multiple sources:
 * Paxton's son, James, has a cameo as a motel guest who tries driving away from a tornado.
 * Paxton's son, James, has a cameo as a motel guest who tries driving away from a tornado.
 * Paxton's son, James, has a cameo as a motel guest who tries driving away from a tornado.
 * Paxton's son, James, has a cameo as a motel guest who tries driving away from a tornado.
 * Paxton's son, James, has a cameo as a motel guest who tries driving away from a tornado.
 * Paxton's son, James, has a cameo as a motel guest who tries driving away from a tornado.

Filming
Principal photography was initially set to happen 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. The move cost the crew work days and resulted in the removal of some storm sequences. Filming was to take place at Prairie Surf Studios for 40 days and in metro Oklahoma City for 50 days. Ultimately, the shoot took 60 days, approximately 70 percent of which was spent capturing driving scenes. Other locations included the towns of Burbank, Calumet, Cashion, Chickasha, Fairview, Hinton, Kingfisher, Kremlin, El Reno, Midwest City, Okarche, Pawhuska, and Spencer. Filming was suspended in July due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. 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. Production resumed with the strike's conclusion in November 2023 and wrapped the following month. Dan Mindel was the cinematographer. Patrick Sullivan, who worked on the original film's art department, was the production designer.

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. 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. Because the shoot occurred during tornado season, delays were frequent. "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." 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. 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. 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.

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. 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. Early versions of the script had the Stillwater tornado surround a college baseball game, but Chung suggested changing it to a rodeo. 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. The theater sequence was shot on soundstages at Prairie Surf, using vintage seats from a closed Colorado movie theater; exterior shots were filmed in El Reno. It was Chung's decision for the characters to be viewing Frankenstein (1931), a reference to Universal's "monsters" franchise. 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.

The film's ten 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. Scott R. Fisher and Ben Snow were the special and visual effects supervisors, respectively. Special effects included wind fans running at around 70 miles per hour; two jet engines operating further away from the sets at 170-to-180 miles per hour; dump tanks; high-pressure pneumatic water cannons; and polyacrylamide for hail. Visual effects were handled by Industrial Light & Magic.

According to Smith, the story incorporates the effects of climate change. 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." 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. In June 2023, amid filming, The Oklahoman reported the production budget for Twisters as nearing $200 million. In July 2024, Variety and Deadline Hollywood listed the budget as $155 million before print and advertising costs.

A slightly alternate ending featuring Powell and Edgar Jones kissing at the airport was cut because Chung felt "it was very polarizing ... If it ends on the kiss, then it makes it seem as though that’s what Kate’s journey was all about — to end up with a kiss but instead, it’s better that it ends with her being able to continue doing what she’s doing with a smile on her face."

Music
Benjamin Wallfisch composed the film's score. The soundtrack, Twisters: The Album, was released on July 19, 2024, through on CD, LP, and digital download by Atlantic Records. It features 29 songs from several country acts, including Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, Bailey Zimmerman, Megan Moroney, Tucker Wetmore, Tanner Adell, Jelly Roll, and others. 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. Universal approached Kevin Weaver to produce the album after his success with the soundtrack for Barbie (2023).

Release
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. The film also screened at the Taormina Film Fest in Italy in July 2024. 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.

Marketing
The Twisters soundtrack accumulated over 175 million streams between May 29 and its theatrical release; Universal released one song per week for ten weeks, then a song per day the final week. In addition, the studio partnered with radio personality Bobby Bones. Sporting events were significant in raising awareness to the film. Universal worked with NASCAR for co-branded promo as well as MLB, Copa América, and WWE. The 30-second television spot broadcast during Super Bowl LVIII amassed 29.2 million views in a day and was among the year's most-watched Super Bowl trailers. Commercials for the film aired during events for All Elite Wrestling, NASCAR, the Olympic Trials, UEFA Euro Cup, UFC, and the WNBA. Universal strategically put tickets on sales during the first game of the 2024 NBA Finals, made content with Dodge RAM and Wrangler, and had the cast participate in a cross-country promotional tour that exceeded New York and Los Angeles and made stops in Dallas, Chicago, and Miami. Special screenings were held in Oklahoma and military bases, and discussions were held between the cast and meteorologists. As a result of the marketing, Deadline Hollywood noted that the film's top-grossing cities during its opening weekend were Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Atlanta, Oklahoma City, and San Antonio, and that theater chains in Middle America like B&B Theatres and Santikos Theatres surged over annual norms.

Box office
, 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.

In the United States and Canada, Twisters was initially projected to gross $40–55 million from 4,151 theaters in its opening weekend. 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.

Critical response
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". 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.

Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph gave it a score of five out of five, writing that it "vastly improves on [the original] in all regards". 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". 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".

Owen Gleiberman of Variety 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".

Scientific accuracy
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 require many tons of the chemicals used and require a much longer period.

Future
In July 2024 following the critical and financial successes of Twisters, Chung expressed interest in developing a sequel. The main cast similarly hoped to further explore the continuing stories of the main characters, with Ramos stating that the script intentionally leaves their story unfinished.