The new Twisters movie starring Glen Powell and directed by Lee Isaac Chung is off to a whirlwind of a start as the flick is exploding at the box office with an estimated $72 million opening.
Original estimates were around $40-50 million+ but thanks to previews which kicked off on Wednesday and a great Friday, Twisters brought in $31 million in its first day.
The number will be the best for a natural disaster film, not counting inflation.
Saturday update: Twisters is doing even better, now with an estimated $75 million opening. Friday blew up with $32.2M.
Monday update: Final numbers are even higher with an $80.5M opening, adding in another $42.7M internationally, for a current $123.2M worldwide gross. Update: Trades are reporting $81.2M.
Not a preachy film
A bonus is also learned in that Twisters is not a preachy film. Though its a meteorological disaster movie, it doesn’t reference climate change or global warming.
The director actually said movies shouldn’t preach a message, something welcoming to hear from Hollywood these days.
“I just wanted to make sure that with the movie, we don’t ever feel like it is putting forward any message,” Chung told CNN. “I just don’t feel like films are meant to be message-oriented.”
A scene does say storms and floods are becoming more frequent, but it’s not in-your-face messaging.
“I think what we are doing is showing the reality of what’s happening on the ground … we don’t shy away from saying that things are changing,” Chung added. “I wanted to make sure that we are never creating a feeling that we’re preaching a message, because that’s certainly not what I think cinema should be about. I think it should be a reflection of the world.”
Fans are loving what they are seeing
Over at Rotten Tomatoes, fans are loving what they see as Twisters has a current 93% Audience Score. The critics not so much, 78%.
Twisters also scored an A- CinemaScore from fans.
The film stars Glen Powell who has achieved A-lister status in Hollywood. He’s starred with Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick, saw big time success starring with Sydney Sweeny in Netflix’s rom-com, Anybody You, and has Hit Man on Netflix from director Richard Linklater.
What is Twisters about?
From the producers of the Jurassic, Bourne and Indiana Jones series comes Twisters, a current-day chapter of the 1996 blockbuster, Twister. Directed by Lee Isaac Chung, the Oscar® nominated writer-director of Minari, Twisters stars Daisy Edgar-Jones (Where the Crawdads Sing), Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick) and Anthony Ramos (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts) as equal forces, with opposing motivations, who come together to try to predict, and possibly tame, the immense power of tornadoes.
Edgar-Jones stars as Kate Carter, a former storm chaser haunted by a devastating encounter with a tornado during her college years who now studies storm patterns on screens safely in New York City. She is lured back to the open plains by her friend, Javi (Ramos) to test a groundbreaking new tracking system. There, she crosses paths with Tyler Owens (Powell), the charming and reckless social-media superstar who thrives on posting his storm-chasing adventures with his raucous crew, the more dangerous the better.
As storm season intensifies, terrifying phenomena never seen before are unleashed, and Kate, Tyler, Javi and their crews find themselves squarely in the paths of multiple storm systems converging over central Oklahoma in the fight of their lives.
Twisters features an exciting new cast, including Nope’s Brandon Perea, Golden Globe winner Maura Tierney (Beautiful Boy), Sasha Lane (American Honey), Harry Hadden-Paton (The Crown), David Corenswet (We Own This City), Daryl McCormack (Peaky Blinders), Tunde Adebimpe (Leave the World Behind), Katy O’Brian (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania), Nik Dodani (Atypical), Kiernan Shipka (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) and Paul Scheer (Black Monday).
From Amblin, Twisters is directed by Lee Isaac Chung and is produced by Oscar® nominee Frank Marshall (Jurassic and Indiana Jones franchises) and by Patrick Crowley (Jurassic and Bourne franchises). The screenplay is by Mark L. Smith, writer of the Best Picture nominee The Revenant, from a story by Joseph Kosinski (Oblivion), based on characters created by Michael Crichton & Anne Marie Crichton. The executive producers are Academy Award® winner Steven Spielberg, Thomas Hayslip and Ashley Jay Sandberg. Twisters will be distributed by Universal Pictures domestically and by Warner Bros. Pictures internationally.
Watch the trailer:
