Twisters looks set to lay waste to the worldwide box office this weekend, with predictions that it will blow past its 1996 prequel’s success.
The film was released in UK cinemas today (July 17), and will hit the US on Friday. Variety projects that it will bring in an estimated $50million (£38million) from North American theatres in its first weekend, based on its early takings from international territories.
Its predecessor Twister, which came out in the summer of 1996, opened to a lofty $41million (unadjusted for inflation), the sixth biggest opening weekend ever to that point, eventually becoming the second highest grossing film of 1996, after Independence Day.
Twisters cost $155million to produce, so will require a big return from the box office, but the early signs are that it will be a success, although it will face stiff competition from Deadpool & Wolverine, which arrives the following weekend.
Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell star in the film as two opposing figures who are in thrall to the megastorms, until they find themselves in a fight for their lives in rural Oklahoma.
Minari director Lee Isaac Chung has helmed it, and it saw its first trailer premiere during the prestigious Super Bowl halftime show. In it, Powell’s character tells Edgar-Jones: “You don’t face your fears, you ride them!”
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In a five-star review of the film, NME wrote: “Every cent of that $200m budget is visible in a series of dizzying set-pieces that surely amount to the most entertaining film of the year.”
“Yet the flick is also cleverly scripted, with Kate’s motivation slowly teased out as we learn she might just have the means of knocking the ‘nados into a cocked hat. The devastation wreaked by the freaky weather is evocatively explored and in this there’s a timely ecological message. Packed with heart, smarts, jaw-dropping effects and an exquisite ensemble cast (shout out to Harry Hadden-Paton’s nerdy British journalist as comic relief), Twisters will have you singing the praises of the multiplex until the cows come home.”
Leading up to the film’s release, it has faced a whirlwind of surprise appearances at its premiere events – one in London with the appearance of Tom Cruise, and another in Los Angeles, where enraged PETA activists stormed the stage.
The late Bill Paxton’s son James appears in a cameo in the film as a “disgruntled hotel guest”. “It’s an Easter egg for the fans of Dad and the original,” James has said. “I did this one for Dad”.