When the Twisters trailer dropped during the Super Bowl this year, fans were in for a treat. The new movie has an exciting young cast and a new filming location, and it really looks like it will be catnip for people who enjoy the original movie. However, looking pretty solid on the big screen isn’t quite the same as filming said adventure film, and Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar Jones and Anthony Ramos were really clear about what they went through to bring Twisters to the big screen.
There was hot weather. There was cold weather. There was crap being pelted at them by a jet engine again and again and again as the flick focused on practical effects over CGI whenever it was able. In fact, speaking during the Universal 2024 CinemaCon panel, Ramos mentioned he was “very grateful to have survived” filming of the movie given all they went through.
Glen Powell: “We all signed on for this movie thinking we were going to be on a soundstage covered in dots. Maybe a delicate spritz on our face, but… no.”
Anthony Ramos: “Instead we were on location in 120 degree heat, racing, for real, through the plains of the Midwest.”
Powell: “We had an actual jet engine hit us with everything: Hit us with hay.”
Ramos: “We had a massive water tank dunked on us.”
Powell: “They pelted us with ice, they covered us in trash.”
Ramos: “…and left us in cars for hours on end without a pee break.”
But the trials and tribulations of this ragged band of actors did not end there. The movie was getting close to wrapping in the summer, in the midwest, when the strike happened. The movie then had to shut down production for a time before the cast was tasked with returning to set after the strike was over to finish filming. The only problem? Anthony Ramos says at that point they had to get ‘pelted’ in the cold weather.
Then we had to come back and get pelted with wind and rain and wind and rain again and again and again… but in the wintertime!
If there’s one thing that’s true of the Midwest it’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter, so Ramos’ story checks out. If there’s one thing that’s true about Twisters, though, it’s that the film really tries to be as entertaining as possible while getting the details right. Director Lee Isaac Chung also said efforts were made to make sure the film was “immersive” and “real.”
We partnered with weather scientists, people who are at the top of the game with tornado science to get our tornadoes looking and feeling as real as possible. … We even sent storm chasers out to get footage for us that we incorporated into our movie. Which is wild.
It really seems to have paid off. There’s a lot of great, big budget fare coming later this year –and a lot of it is coming from Universal between this movie, the upcoming adaptation of Wicked, and the finally-coming Gladiator 2 sequel. We saw an actual rhino make it into the footage for that latter movie, and I’m not sure if they had “experts” on hand when they cooked up that scene like Twisters, but I’m pumped regardless for what’s coming up.
The new tornado thriller will hit the 2024 movie release schedule on July 19.