Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones have somehow found a way to make relentless natural destruction sexy.
The leads of “Twisters,” along with costar Anthony Ramos, showed up onstage at the annual movie theater owners gathering CinemaCon to offer a first look at the sequel to the 1996 adventure film “Twister,” which starred Helen Hunt and the late Bill Paxton.
The chemistry between the “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Normal People” stars was palpable. The exhibitors ate up Powell as a cocky “tornado wrangler” fond of strutting in wet t-shirts and pushing an absurdly tricked-out pickup truck. The actors were also open about their intense filming conditions, saying they shot in 120-degree heat, got hit with a jet engine, smothered with hay, had a water tank dumped on them, got pelted by ice, were covered in trash and dragged by wires.
While Powell and Edgar-Jones are proven box office draws, the ensemble cast is quietly stacked with DC’s new “Superman” David Corenswet, Sasha Lane, Katy O’Brian, Maura Tierney, Kiernan Shipka and “Nope” actor Brandon Perea.
The response will no doubt come as a relief to Universal, which was forced to pause production on “Twisters” amid the 2023 Hollywood labor strikes. Filmmakers held strong and stayed on track for its July 19 release.
The franchise sequel is directed by Lee Isaac Chung, a two-time Oscar nominee for best original screenplay and best director for his breakthrough feature “Minari.” Hailing from the low-budget art house, Chung addressed the obvious in front of the theater owners.
“Jumping to a tentpole film felt like the scariest possible thing I could do in my life. It felt like what it must feel like to face a giant tornado,” Chung said, adding that he has street cred when it comes to the weather disasters having grown up in Arkansas.
Last year, Powell shed some light on the plot structure of the new film. “It’s definitely not a reboot,” he said. “We’re not trying to recreate the story from the first one. It’s a completely original story. There are no characters from the original movie back, so it’s not really a continuation. It’s just its own standalone story in the modern-day.”