I’d almost forgotten that Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment were developing a reboot of Twister, the classic 1996 storm-chasing blockbuster starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. Well, it seems that the Twister reboot is more of a sequel, which is titled, you guessed it… Twisters.
Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski was originally slated to direct the Twister sequel, but he dropped out in favour of his Formula One racing movie starring Brad Pitt. Deadline has reported that the studios are meeting with potential directors with the hope of starting shooting in Spring 2023. Some of those in consideration are Dan Trachtenberg (Prey), Travis Knight (Bumblebee), and Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vaserhelyi (Free Solo). Deadline says that there may be one or two other candidates being considered as well. The sequel has been penned by Mark L. Smith (The Revenant), and the report states that Amblin’s Steven Spielberg “flipped” for the script.
It’s said that the Twister sequel hopes to bring Helen Hunt back as Dr. Jo Harding. It will focus on the daughter she had with Bill Paxton’s character, who has caught the same “storm-chasing bug” that her parents did. The original Twister was directed by Jan de Bont and written by Micahel Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin. The movie followed “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.” It grossed nearly $500 million worldwide and was the second-highest-grossing film of the year. Sadly, several members of the original cast are no longer with us, notably Bill Paxton and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Are you down for a Twister sequel? Who would you like to see direct?