‘Twister’ Director Says He Wasn’t Consulted About Upcoming Sequel

Jan de Bont, the director of 1996’s Twister, is giving his thoughts on Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment’s upcoming sequel.

In an interview with Inverse, published online Tuesday, the Speed filmmaker said he wasn’t consulted about the new movie and that he feels it will be completely different from his version, especially since visual effects technology has changed so much since.

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“When things fell from the sky, there were real things falling from a helicopter,” de Bont said. “If you film a car escaping a tornado in a hail storm, it was real ice that came at us. It’s a movie that cannot be remade.… That would never, ever happen again.”

He added that every shot they got “was a fortune” because “it would take three days to transfer all that information onto film. Right now it’s fast, but in the beginning, it was super slow. And we had to be so careful to get the shots done before the movie opened.”

The original Twister, which starred Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton, followed a storm-chasing couple who reunited to track the massive storm. The follow-up, directed by Lee Isaac Chung, is described as a “new chapter” in the story with all new characters and is said to take place after the events of the first film. The sequel is set to star Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell and Anthony Ramos.

Though de Bont has the utmost respect for Chung and even enjoyed his 2020 drama Minari, he admitted that he hasn’t decided if he’ll see the sequel. He added, “I want to have somebody else see it first.”

The director also expressed some skepticism about the recent trend he has seen of indie filmmakers jumping quickly to take on studio projects.

“Don’t forget that the main reason they’re finding younger, inexperienced people is they want to be able to fully control them,” de Bont said. “They want them to have really good ADs, writers, producers, cinematographers so that they have all the help they can get. But ultimately, the studio is going to tell them what’s in the movie. I know that firsthand.”

Chung’s Twister is slated to hit theaters July 19, 2024.

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