Return To The Suck Zone With The New Twisters Trailer
It's been 28 years since Jan De Bont's "Twister" ripped through theaters and whipped up a $496 million worldwide gross. In the meantime, it's become a weekend cable mainstay, where viewers can tune out its wafer-thin plot and simply enjoy the foul weather spectacle. It's far from a classic, but its visual prowess is undeniable, and its colorful cast of storm chasers led by Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt seem to be having a ball. Any film that includes Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alan Ruck, Jami Gertz, Todd Field, and Lois Smith is bound to be fun on some level.
So why has it taken so long for Universal to make a sequel to the second-highest-grossing film (domestically) of 1996?
"Twisters" didn't exactly have a stormy development process, but it did go through a couple of iterations over the last four years. Joseph Kosinski was attached to direct in early 2020. When that fell through, Helen Hunt approached the studio about writing and directing the sequel herself. Universal finally settled on "The Revenant" screenwriter Mark L. Smith to pen the script in 2022, and, when Kosinski dropped out, began a director search that reportedly included Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Dan Trachtenberg, and Travis Knight.
The gig ultimately went to Lee Isaac Chung, and if you're thinking the Academy Award-nominated director of "Minari" was an odd choice, he's just the latest in a long line of visionary filmmakers who've opted to try their hand at making a mega-budget Hollywood flick. He also directed an episode of "The Mandalorian," so he knows his way around a big-ish genre production. And if you're still questioning his hiring, watch the darn trailer and try telling me he's out of his element.
Is Twisters a sequel in title only?
Chung and Smith have followed the template of the first film and assembled a first-rate ensemble cast. Who doesn't want to watch the charming likes of Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Maura Tierney, Sasha Lane, Kiernan Shipka and James Gunn's Superman/Clark Kent David Corenswet contend with a whole mess of property shredding tornados?
According to Smith, the film will also deal with climate change, and how the phenomenon has caused storms to become more intense throughout the 21st century. But if you're hoping "Twisters" will be a direct sequel to the first film, that, alas, is not in the cards. As Smith told Collider last December:
"[Chung] did his own thing to the script a little bit because that's what they do, so I don't know about some of the changes exactly. So, I don't know the details, but it's a separate story. It's not a continuation of the original. But it's just a real wild ride with some good, fun characters."
Without Paxton and Hoffman around to reprise their roles, I'm totally fine with Chung going in his own direction with the material. We'll find out if he can match the visual and aural fury of De Bont's film when "Twisters" arrives on July 19, 2024.