There hasn’t been an elements-versus-humans blockbuster from a major American studio since 2017’s Gerard Butler vehicle Geostorm. Not only is it a shame for fans of weather spectacle, but society has a whole of it. Given the escalating climate crisisthis would be a good time to scare the unsuspecting movie audience with the awesome power of nature (if it hits too close to home… that’s the point).
Satisfying, Twisters is here to shake up the summer of 2024 with classic post-human rage.
Directed by Lee Isaac Chung (the Oscar nominee Minari), Twisters is the sequel to Twister, which used 1996’s state-of-the-art special effects to recreate mile-wide F5 tornadoes, drop Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt into the eye of the storm, and send a few cows flying across the screen. Chung’s sequel follows a new series of storm chasers, and the cast is just as big: Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal people), Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick), Antonius Ramos (Hamilton), Maura Tierney (The Iron Claw), Sasha Lane (How to blow up a pipeline), Kiernan Shipka (Chilling adventures of Sabrina), and TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe are all set to launch tiny micro sensors into the cyclones or whatever advanced meteorological technology our heroes will use this time.
Screenwriter Mark. L. Smith (The Revenant) recently told Collider that the film would not be directly related to the original Twisterbut he and Chung wanted to take a realistic approach to the catastrophe-driven thriller.
“I’ve talked to so many storm experts, tornado experts, storm chasers and driven around with some of them,” Smith said. “Even the tornado season itself, because of climate change, what used to be tornado alley went through a certain stretch. It now extends further east like this, and it’s moving across, and the dates are wider, and the numbers are higher, and the storms themselves are more violent. So we used elements of that to shine a light on it, as well as the causes and consequences of climate change.”
Although Chung may seem like an odd choice Twistersjumping from a character-driven family drama to a set-piece-driven tentpole, the writer-director has two key factors going for him: the Arkansas set. Minari proved he has a strong sense of Midwestern locations and cultural sensibilities, and between features he cut his teeth on episodes of The Mandalorian And Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. Let the hype begin – I like it Geostormbut I would really like to Twisters to hit, please and thank you.
Twisters — which James Cameron styles like “Twister$” – hits theaters on July 19.