Twisters Just Set An Impressive (And Specific) Box Office Record
The hot streak at the summer box office remains alive and well as director Lee Isaac Chung's "Twisters" did much, much better on opening weekend than anyone expected it to. The standalone sequel to the classic 1996 summer blockbuster "Twister" had been expected to open in the $50 million range based on early tracking numbers. Some analysts, however, had predicted that the disaster flick would open much higher. That proved to be true, so much so that Chung's crowd-pleaser has found its way into the record books with the biggest opening weekend ever for a disaster movie in the U.S.
Universal Pictures' "Twisters" took in an estimated $80.5 million domestically, easily topping the charts this past weekend. With that, it breaks a very specific record held by Roland Emmerich's "The Day After Tomorrow," which hit theaters 20 years ago in 2004. That film opened to $68.7 million domestically and, ever since, that has been the high bar for a disaster movie in North America. It took two decades, but that record has finally been broken. Whether it was folks who grew up going to the movies in the '90s looking for a blast of nostalgia or younger moviegoers who were merely on board for an old-school blockbuster, this one successfully cast a very wide net.
The film centers on a former storm chaser named Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones). She is lured back to the action by a friend (Anthony Ramos) to test a groundbreaking new tracking system. They cross paths with the popular social media storm chaser Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) and decide to team up, contending with multiple massive storm systems in Oklahoma. Maura Tierney ("The Iron Claw"), Sasha Lane ("Hellboy"), David Corenswet ("Pearl"), Katy O'Brian ("The Mandalorian"), Kiernan Shipka ("Chilling Adventures of Sabrina"), and Paul Scheer ("The League") also star.
Twisters was a risky legacy sequel that worked (in the U.S. at least)
With a reported $155 million budget, Universal and Warner Bros. (which is handling overseas distribution) were betting that audiences cared enough about the original "Twister" to help build buzz for this one. Reboots of once-popular IP certainly don't always work out. Just look at what happened with "The Fall Guy" earlier this year, despite earning rave reviews. Yet, thanks to the undeniable star power of Glen Powell, a stacked ensemble, and an entertaining film that stands on its own two feet regardless of one's relationship to the original film, this risk paid off.
Well, at the very least, it's paying off in North America. Internationally is a different story. As of this writing, the film has made just $42.7 million overseas. Granted, it still needs to open in Japan and South Korea, but those markets aren't going to bring in enough to totally change the narrative here. A movie this expensive very much needs to perform around the world to justify the expense. To that end, "The Day After Tomorrow" did $552.6 million worth of business globally, with $365.8 million, or more than 66% of those ticket sales, coming from overseas markets. It's essentially the inverse for "Twisters" thus far.
We'll have to see how things play out in the coming weeks. The original "Twister" made $495.7 million worldwide in its day, with about 51% of that money coming internationally. For now, it doesn't seem like the sequel will be able to do those same numbers. Luckily, for the time being, things are going well enough in the U.S. to help offset things. If nothing else, "Twisters" gets to plant its flag as the film that finally toppled a 20-year-old record.
"Twisters" is currently playing in theaters.