Somehow The Tornado Returned In The Twisters Super Bowl Trailer

All anybody wants to talk about these days is flooding, winter vortexes, and other natural disasters stemming from the ongoing climate crisis. Well, apparently, the tornado from "Twister" got wind of this (I'm sorry) and is back with a vengeance in the newly unveiled Super Bowl trailer for "Twisters."

Neither a direct follow-up to director Jan de Bont's 1996 natural disaster thriller nor a complete reboot of the franchise, "Twisters" follows a new team of storm chasers as they battle destructive cyclones in the present day. Apparently, at one point, "Twister" star Helen Hunt and "Blindspotting" co-writers/co-stars Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal pitched a proper legacy sequel that, according to Hunt, would've focused on "all Black and Brown storm chasers." However, the studio powers that be didn't go for it for "potentially shady" reasons, as Diggs told Business Insider last year.

Instead, "Twisters" tells what co-star Glen Powell has described as a standalone story set in the "Twister" universe and doesn't feature any characters from the first movie. Writer Mark L. Smith ("The Revenant," "The Boys in the Boat") has also confirmed that global warming will factor into the plot. "That's one of the things that we kind of tapped, and it's true," he told Collider back in December. He added that the tornado season and "what used to be tornado alley" have changed over the last 28 years. Meanwhile, the storms themselves have become "more violent." Neat!

"Twisters" hales from director Lee Isaac Chung, who's best known for his terrific Best Picture nominated semi-autobiography "Minari." Chung himself grew up in rural Arkansas (as seen in "Minari"), a place that's endured its share of tornados over the years despite not being strictly part of Tornado Alley. That being the case, it might help explain his signing on for this movie, which otherwise reads as a bit of a head-scratching move for the filmmaker. Then again, he recently worked on "The Mandalorian" season 3 and the upcoming "Star Wars" series "Skeleton Crew," so maybe he's just been itching to stretch his wings a little further and try making stuff go boom on the big screen this time.

He's certainly assembled an auspicious cast for "Twisters," with Powell joined by Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos, Daryl McCormack, Sasha Lane, Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, Kiernan Shipka, Katy O'Brian, Tunde Adebimpe, and future "Superman: Legacy" star David Corenswet. It's silly that Chung had to hitch this movie onto the "Twister" property rather than simply being allowed to make his own original tornado flick, but them's the times we live in.

"Twisters" swirls into theaters on July 19, 2024.