Twenty-seven years after the release of the blockbuster disaster film Twister (watch it HERE), Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment have finally put a follow-up on the fast track to release – but they’re not calling it a sequel. Scheduled to receive a theatrical release on July 19, 2024, Twisters has been described as a “new chapter” in what is about to become a franchise… and during an interview with Vogue, cast member Glen Powell – who can currently be seen on the big screen in the romantic comedy Anyone but You – confirmed that the film tells a standalone story. But even without any connection to the original film, he believes that it’s something that will be able to connect to everyone around the world.
Powell told Vogue (with thanks to Deadline for sharing the text) that Twisters is “definitely not a reboot. We’re not trying to recreate the story from the first one. It’s a completely original story. There are no characters from the original movie back, so it’s not really a continuation. It’s just its own standalone story in the modern-day. I don’t think anyone has brought up (Twister) in forever, but talking to people, they’re like, ‘That was one of my favorite movies growing up. That movie terrified me.’“
Powell added that his involvement with Twisters is inspired by advice he received from his Top Gun: Maverick co-star Tom Cruise, who told him, “If you want to make movies of a certain size and scope and scale, you have to figure out what can connect with everyone around the world in every territory. And humans versus weather is a very universal idea—how powerless we really are in the face of these cataclysmic forces.“
Minari director Lee Isaac Chung is at the helm of Twisters, working from a screenplay written by The Revenant‘s Mark L. Smith. The film is being co-financed by Warner Bros. Sara Scott and Jacqueline Garell are overseeing the project for Universal Pictures, while Ashley Jay Sandberg does the same for the Kennedy/Marshall production company.
Daisy Edgar-Jones (Where the Crawdads Sing) stars as a former storm chaser who works a desk job after surviving a disastrous tornado encounter. However, she will be forced back out onto the field.
Edgar-Jones and Powell are joined in the cast by Anthony Ramos (In the Heights), Daryl McCormack (Peaky Blinders), Kiernan Shipka (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Maura Tierney (The Affair), Harry Hadden-Paton (Downton Abbey), Sasha Lane (American Honey), Nik Dodani (Atypical), Tunde Adebimpe (Spider-Man: Homecoming), Katy O’Brian (The Mandalorian), Brandon Perea (Nope), and David Corenswet (Pearl).
Directed by Jan de Bont from a screenplay by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin, the first Twister told the following story: Bill and Jo Harding, advanced storm chasers on the brink of divorce, must join together to create an advanced weather alert system by putting themselves in the cross-hairs of extremely violent tornadoes. The film starred Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt – and a couple years ago, Hunt was developing a sequel with Blindspotting writers Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal that she wanted to direct herself. Apparently the studio wasn’t interested in her approach.
Universal had talked to Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski about a Twister remake, but Kosinski chose to work with Brad Pitt and Apple on the Formula One racing movie Apex instead.
Are you interested in Twisters? What do you think of what Glen Powell had to say about the film? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
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