Following Its Predecessor’s Successful Path, “Twisters” Touches Down in Oklahoma
When the disaster thriller Twister was released in 1996, the film turned out to be one of the summer’s biggest blockbusters and the second-highest-grossing movie of the year (the first was Independence Day). Helen Hunt starred as Jo, a meteorologist who was out to revolutionize tornado alert systems through a small, censor-filled device named Dorothy, conceived by her almost ex-husband, weatherman Bill (Bill Paxton). Almost thirty years later, a sequel is on the way: Twisters, directed by Lee Isaac Chung (Minari), due in theaters July 19th.
Hunt is not reprising her earlier role, and Paxton passed away in 2017. Starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, and Anthony Ramos and written by Mark L. Smith, Twisters is a standalone film, confirmed by Powell in an interview with Vogue. However, like its predecessor, the sequel takes place in Oklahoma, where it was also filmed. The original movie, set during an unusually violent tornado spell, was unique at the time for its shooting locations, a decision driven by director Jan De Bont, who, according to Vulture, insisted on taking the production to the state instead of California and the UK. Now, Twisters has followed suit.
Twister was filmed in towns like Wakita, which was also a location in the movie itself, and Fairfax, which also recently saw the production of Killers of the Flower Moon come to town. The newer film was likewise shot around the state, in locations including Chickasha, Okarche, El Reno, Spencer, and Cashion. And both Twister and Twisters relied on filming in Oklahoma City, with the crew on the latest film working with around 500 local vendors and setting up shop across ten of the city’s hotels, according to The Oklahoman, as well as spending 40 days on set at Prairie Surf Studios.
Shooting in the state where both movies take place doesn’t just give each film a credible layer of reality but has led to a few curious cases of life imitating art. A 2010 tornado tragically destroyed much of the Fairfax farm where several Twister scenes had been filmed, The Oklahoman reported (fortunately, the family who owned the farm was unhurt). Even stranger, that particular tornado blew in on the 14th anniversary of the movie’s U.S. release.
The original movie also apparently spurred real-life interest in the study of meteorology; enrollment in the meteorology department at the University of Oklahoma almost doubled after Twister’s release, and Universal Studios gave the school a grant for a mobile radar. That interest seems to have been prescient — there’s now even more to study, as tornado behavior appears to be changing. This phenomenon may be caused by climate change, which, coming full circle, Twisters screenwriter Smith wound up incorporating into the plot of the latest film, he told Collider.
Of course, it doesn’t just make sense to shoot the setting for tornadoes in locations where they’re best known to touch down. Oklahoma is also beautiful, which might be easy to forget watching a disaster thriller, but it is abundantly apparent in another Twisters connection to the state. This is director Chung’s second time shooting here. His heartbreaking, Oscar-nominated drama Minari is set in Arkansas but was filmed in and around Tulsa, and for sightseers curious to check out that film’s scenic settings for themselves, Visit Tulsa has a comprehensive list of visitable shooting locations.
But if you can’t make it to Oklahoma in person, there’s Twisters. The new film once again follows the path of committed storm chasers, both local and dropping in from out of state. Residents at least get alerts on their cell phones now, but the overall premise hasn’t changed — one of the most electrifying forces of nature out there, when it comes to tornadoes, we humans still have much to learn.
Twisters is in theaters on July 19.
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Featured image: Twin Twisters, in Twisters directed by Lee Isaac Chung.
