twister-sequel-reportedly-in-the-works

‘Twister’ Sequel Reportedly in the Works

Exciting news for Twister fans! More than 20 years after its theatrical debut, the 1996 hit disaster film reportedly has a sequel in the works. 

Deadline reports that Twister, which generated more than $494 million at the worldwide box office in 1996, will have a follow-up film, Twisters. A Universal rep confirmed that Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment are now working on developing the sequel. Warner Bros. Entertainment will be co-financing the project. 

It was also reported that The Revenant screenwriter Mark L. Smith will be writing Twisters. Frank Marshall is also going to produce the film. However, there are no details about the director yet. Top Gun: Maverick director, Joseph Kosinski, originally was going to direct. But he had to back out of the project due to committing to the Formula One racing film that Brad Pitt is working on. Others considered for the director position are Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vaserhelyi; and Dan Trachtenberg.

Sources told Deadline that there is hope to bring Helen Hunt back for the Twister sequel. The film will focus on the daughter of Hunt’s original film character Jo Harding. The storm-chasing character has a child with the late Bill Paxton’s Bill Harding. 

The information about the Twister sequel surfaces more than six months after Bill Paxton’s family and his anesthesiologist agreed to partial terms in the actor’s wrongful death lawsuit. Paxton passed away in February 2017 during heart surgery. Dr. Moody Makar was the anesthesiologist at the time. The settlement revealed that “reasonably compensate plaintiffs and avoid exposing the defendant to an expensive and time-consuming litigation.”

The Twister actor’s family received $1 million. There is still an ongoing lawsuit with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Dr. Ali Khoynezhad. The hearing was scheduled for last month.

Helen Hunt Reflects on First Hearing About ‘Twister’ 

While speaking to Vulture in 2020, Helen Hunt discusses her first impression of Twister. She admitted that all she remembers is that she didn’t think she wanted to do it. 

“Which is crazy, because I’ve never been the lead in a big, fancy movie before,” the Twister actress explained. “But I guess I just didn’t know what I could really contribute acting-wise. Then I got on a lunch break from Mad About You — ‘They want you to have lunch with Steven Spielberg and [director] Jan de Bont.’”

Despite her original thoughts about it, Helen Hunt said it didn’t take much to convince her to do Twister. “They had cool ideas about what the script was gonna become, and they hired good writers to work on it, and it was me at the center of this gigantic movie. I went from — I don’t know why I didn’t think it was a good idea — to thinking it was a great idea to be in this movie.”