Minari director swops art-house for blockbuster reboot Twisters
LOS ANGELES/LONDON – Twisters, Hollywood’s latest attempt to reboot nostalgic blockbusters for modern audiences, might seem an unlikely next career step for Korean-American film-maker Lee Isaac Chung.
His previous film Minari (2020) was a sweet, quiet, semi-autobiographical tale of South Korean immigrants struggling to adapt to life in rural 1980s Arkansas in the US.
It earned the writer-director art-house acclaim and six Oscar nominations – including for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress (which Youn Yuh-jung won).
But even if it drew on nostalgia for the Deep South, it was a long way from Twister – the big, brash 1996 blockbuster starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt that terrified audiences with devastating Oklahoma tornadoes, brought to life with nascent computer-generated effects.
Even so, Hollywood studio Universal tapped Chung for Twisters, which is showing in Singapore cinemas – and he jumped at the opportunity.
“I was really wanting to make a movie like this for quite a long time,” the 45-year-old said at the film’s Los Angeles premiere last week. “In my mind, it was never a stretch.
Part of that appeal was the chance to play with the latest computer-generated visual effects, known in the industry as VFX.
Twisters employed the talents of Hollywood veteran George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic, to generate “really epic” effects, said Chung.
“In terms of VFX, there’s just so much more that can be done to the environment around a tornado,” he said. “In that first film, you just see the tornado itself. But really, what makes a tornado powerful is the effect that it has on nature and the surroundings.”
Twisters has not escaped controversy. The Los Angeles premiere was interrupted by animal rights activists, protesting the film’s use of live animals for a rodeo scene.
But so far, the gamble looks to be paying off.
The film, made for around US$200 million (S$269 million) and distributed overseas by fellow Hollywood titan Warner Bros, stormed the North American box office on its opening weekend, earning over US$80 million.
It stars British actress Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People, 2020; Where The Crawdads Sing, 2022) as a meteorologist and American actor Glen Powell (Anyone But You, 2023; Top Gun: Maverick, 2022) as a daredevil storm chaser and superstar streamer, whose paths cross during a once-in-a-generation tornado outbreak in Oklahoma
“This is a new chapter. This is just a modern telling of that same community that audiences responded to in 1996,” said Powell, 35, at Twisters’ London premiere in early July.
“Audiences can expect lots of fun, lots of thrills and just to strap in and go on the ride,” added Edgar-Jones, 26.
Powell’s character is a former rodeo star and self-titled “tornado wrangler”, whose rowdy team courts danger with gusto. Powell, a Texan, said both the original movie and the reboot resonated with him personally.
“When I was nine years old, there was a tornado that went through Jarrell, Texas, and we were on the road to my aunt’s ranch and got kind of stuck in it. It was a really terrifying thing... But we cleaned up after that tornado. It’s one of those things that imprints on you for the rest of your life,” he added.
“This movie’s really about what we do in the face of storms, and also how we pick up after one another in the wake of disaster,” said Powell. “It’s a thing that affects a lot of people – and not just tornadoes, but weather all over the planet. I think this is a universal movie for that reason.”
Twisters, scripted by American screenwriter Mark L. Smith (The Revenant, 2015; The Midnight Sky, 2020), is based on consultations with meteorologists, climate scientists and real-life storm chasers, said Chung.
“We had people working on the forefront of climate science and also tornado science. We tried to incorporate as much of that into this film as possible to honour what is actually happening, and also honour the scientists who are heroes in many ways. If we’re going to look to any solutions, we have to look to the scientists,” he said.
Like Twister, Chung hopes his follow-up will leave a lasting impact.
“That first film inspired so many people to get into weather science and research. I would love if that would happen with this movie, that we would inspire a new generation of people who want to research and get out there and study.” – AFP/REUTERS
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