By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Blockbusters of the 80s and 90s have been getting legacy sequels lately, which differ from regular sequels because they acknowledge how much time has passed, how the world has changed, and how the characters are now much older. Axel F, Top Gun: Maverick, Coming 2 America, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the list goes on and on, including, after fans waited almost 30 years, Twisters. Finally free from production hell, the sequel to one of the greatest disaster movies ever made broke box office records, became Peacock’s number one movie, and now it’s dominating on Amazon Prime Video.
Twisters Stacked Cast Of Up And Coming Stars
Starring Daisy Edgar-Jones as former storm chaser Kate, Glen Powell as the hotshot storm chaser Tyler Owns, and Anthony Ramos as Javi, Kate’s friend and a storm chaser working for StormPAR, a company that wants to study tornados to save lives, Twisters knows that the real draw is the tornados themselves. There’s a plot, there’s character arcs, and even a few unexpected twists and turns, but more importantly, there’s a fire tornado. As with the first film, every time the film seems to be losing momentum, another storm arrives.
Between storm fronts, you’ll be able to recognize most of Twisters supporting cast as well, including Kiernan Shipka, Maura Tierny (who will forever be remembered for Newsradio), Loki’s Sash Lane, and the next Superman himself, David Corenswet, as one of the financiers behind StormPAR. In a nod to the original, Bill Paxton’s son James makes a cameo appearance, but Helen Hunt, the other star of the original, is nowhere to be found. Though that’s disappointing for fans of the original, again, the sequel includes a fire tornado.
Record-Breaking Disaster
Disaster movies have waxed and waned in popularity over the years, from the highs of The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure to Twister and The Day After Tomorrow, but while it’s hard to make a truly bad disaster film like Moonfall, the genre has been dormant for a few years. Even then, backed by nostalgia for the 1996 classic and anchored by two of Hollywood’s hottest rising stars, Twisters was expected to clean up at the box office. The film blew past expectations and holds the record for top-grossing natural disaster movie, powered in large part by the film being a seminal experience in the premium 4DX format.
In theaters, Twisters ended up earning $372 million worldwide, including pulling off the remarkable feat of earning more money during its seventh week in theaters, when it was released digitally on Video on Demand, compared to its sixth week. It’s another hit in a series of them for leading man Glen Powell, following Anyone But You, the best rom-com of the last few years, and 2023’s Hit Man, a quirky Richard Linklater film that proved he could act. Though, again, the real draw of the film is the special effects, and while it needed to be seen on the largest screen possible to be fully appreciated, it’s perfect for streaming.
Twisters doesn’t demand much from the audience. It’s a thrill ride from beginning to end, and sometimes, that’s all you need from a movie when trying to unwind after work or rest during a lazy Sunday afternoon. Here’s hoping that the wait for Twist3rs won’t take as long as it did for the sequel.
Twisters is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
