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Back in 1996, “Twister,” a movie about chasing tornadoes starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt, took the box office by storm, ultimately grossing half a billion dollars worldwide.
Nearly three decades later, director Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”) is hoping such cinematic lightning can strike twice.
His take on the genre, “Twisters” (in theaters Friday), offers up another compelling sky-gazing duo in storm chasers Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) and Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones), as well as the requisite adrenaline-jacked moments that define summer movie fun.
“Twisters” was Chung’s way of ticking two boxes: infusing an action film with his brand of character drama while also paying tribute as an Arkansan to any American who’s been terrorized by Mother Nature’s deadly whirlwind.
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If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like to be stalked by a tornado but didn’t want to risk life and limb, “Twisters” is here to offer that vicarious thrill. It also provides an instant jolt of sympathy for those who endure such catastrophes.
“This movie felt personal to me, between being an ecology major in college and simply growing up with this weather,” says Chung, whose hometown of Lincoln, Arkansas, lies near the Oklahoma border. “And we tried to pay tribute to the original ‘Twister,’ a movie that meant a lot to me.”
‘Twisters’ director Lee Isaac Chung wanted his movie to feel as real as possible
That homage included having Dorothy − the name of the metal cylinder that contains the storm-tracking balls deployed into a tornado funnel − make an appearance in “Twisters.” In addition, despite huge advancements in special effects since 1996, Chung committed to as few camera tricks as possible.
Not only do some of the scenes in “Twisters” feature footage of real storms that brewed during filming in northern Oklahoma (also the location for the first film), but a tornado-devastated town was built from scratch by Chung’s set designers, incorporating debris from past storm damage.
“I enjoyed the irony that we often had to shut down for actual weather only to then re-create it on camera afterward,” says Edgar-Jones (“Where the Crawdads Sing”), 26, who as a London native was fascinated by the Midwest’s big weather (“The most extreme we get is a bit of drizzle”).
The verisimilitude extended far beyond shooting in actual Tornado Alley locations. There’s an establishing shot early in the movie that shows a large gathering of storm chasers − including our main characters − in a motel parking lot. The rigs on display are beyond impressive, huge trucks and pickups all sprouting antennas, radar and other tornado-hunting devices.
All totally real, says Powell, 35.
“Those extras were real storm chasers, in their own vehicles,” the “Hit Man” star says. “We all got to know them, and suddenly, we’re on different weather-related (online) threads with them. It was so fun being part of that ride. I mean, you just land in Oklahoma and everyone talks like an amateur meteorologist, just looking at the sky with excitement. It was infectious.”
Glen Powell and his castmates went chasing real tornadoes to get into a ‘Twisters’ mood
Powell, along with his movie sidekick Boone (Brandon Perea) and Edgar-Jones, joined some of those amateur tornado hunters on a few chases. While they didn’t get as close to the dark beasts as depicted in “Twisters,” the trips helped explain the mania that grips those on the hunt.
”When you chase, there’s this cowboy scientist thing that comes into play. These people are part meteorologists, part adrenaline junkies,” says Powell. “So on the one hand, some people drive into tornadoes to show how insane they are. But on the other, it takes a serious amount of intelligence and instinct to do this. You don’t just roll up on a storm by accident, you have to know what you’re doing.”
In the view of Edgar-Jones, movies such as “Twisters” have a lot in common with other epic big-screen fare such as “Jurassic Park” and the "Indiana Jones" films. “They all make superheroes out of real people, in this case, storm chasers,” she says.
To inhabit their roles, both lead actors studied up on the science of tornadoes, grilled tornado consultants on the set, and even visited major weather tracking centers to speak with experts.
Says Chung: “If you looked at Daisy’s script, it was totally marked up, just lots of notes in all the margins. She was analyzing everything, the better to understand her character.”
Ultimately, the very real weather that often battered the filmmakers proved a boon to the actors, says Chung. It meant "the actors got something very real to act against,” he says. “And hopefully that all shows up on the screen.”
That would be a co*cktail of wonder, excitement and, at times, sheer terror.
“I still want to see a tornado before I die,” says Edgar-Jones, who has stayed in touch with some of her Oklahoma storm-chasing pals. “I told them, keep calling me when you hear about the storms. One day.”
