The two big blockbusters of the summer of 1996 were Roland Emmerick's Independence Day and Jan de Bont's Twister. Both films featured big-name actors in mortal peril, second-time-around romance, and never-before-seen special effects. Audiences watched as various American landmarks were blown up by alien spacecraft in Independence Day and the first believable tornado ever depicted on the big screen in Twister. Thanks to some ground-breaking CGI, the latter was even nominated for a Special Effects Oscar. And with strong, character-driven plots at their cores, both were embraced by the movie-going public and remain strong favorites with fans twenty-five years later.
Yet while Independence Day's sequel appeared five years ago, Twister's reboot, which was first pitched as a 3D movie back in 2010, was finally announced by Universal in 2020. Despite original co-star Helen Hunt touting the film last year, it has yet to be announced, leading to speculation the studio may have canceled the project entirely. We hope not, but if it is going ahead, here's what Twister director Joseph Kosinski will need to get right about Jo and Bill's will-they-won't-they romance, played out among the wide-open spaces of Oklahoma -- and a heck of a lot of tornados.
Make the Storm Chasers More Rounded Characters
As big-budget disaster movies go, Twister had an embarrassment of riches when it came to the supporting cast, which reads like a who's who of Hollywood's best and brightest. Aside from the ever-dependable Cary Elwes playing against type as a meteorologist-cum-corporate shill and Broadway veteran Lois Smith as Aunt Meg, Jo and Bill's team of storm-chasers had its fair share of big hitters. Alan Ruck, beloved by John Hughes fans as Ferris Bueller's little-boy-lost best friend Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) and fresh from a scene-stealing turn as nervous bus passenger Doug Stephens in Speed (1994), appears as the team's map-reader, Rabbit. Todd Fields, now better known as the director of the Oscar-nominated In The Bedroom (2001) and Little Children (2006), adds value as radar operator Beltzer. A fresh-faced Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the role of Dusty, almost ten years before his Oscar-winning turn in Capote.
The trouble with this group of tornado hunters is their blandness. The mixture of Lone Gunmen-esque hippiedom, grungy geekiness, and stoner vibes the group projects is at once harmless and utterly unwrinkled. While the cast's considerable acting firepower is brought to bear in an effort to make the audience care about these characters, they look, sound, and feel as disposable to the plot as indeed they were. Imbuing such characters in the reboot with a little more verve and personality would be a definite improvement on the original.
Get the Casting Right for Melissa
The same cannot be said of the film's romantic foil -- lovelorn Bill's new girlfriend, Melissa. In hindsight, it's hard to believe Jami Gertz, a replacement for Mira Sorvino (who refused to dye her hair to play the part), was nominated for a Razzie for her performance.
In truth, Gertz's performance is the beating heart of the film. A strait-laced, warm-hearted therapist, Melissa's journey is the most tragic of all as she comes to terms with being the third wheel in a rapidly rekindling relationship between Bill and his soon-to-be-ex-wife, Jo (Hunt). Gertz plays Melissa at first as an outsider desperately wanting in on all the fun -- her exchanges with the storm chasers are as awkward as they are eager.
But then, as she sees the chemistry between Bill and Jo reasserting itself, the performance assumes a dignified air, as Melissa calmly acknowledges the relationship's failure and readies herself to move on. Gertz's work added much-needed emotional heft to a film that would otherwise tread a fine line between an action film and sentimental drama, and finding someone to fill her shoes will be a tough business.
Keep the Science Straight
This isn't difficult. There were numerous technical inaccuracies in the original film, the most glaring of which was the sight of two seasoned storm chasers taking shelter under a bridge, something they would never do in real life. But in general, the movie did an adequate job of relating the basics of tornados and meteorology, with most of the mistakes resulting from inaccuracies rather than scientific impossibilities.
The temptation to play fast and loose with the science in the name of plot convenience seldom ends well, as near-contemporary blockbuster Armageddon (1998) amply demonstrated. Its central plot point, which revolved around astronauts planting a massive bomb inside an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, was so poorly contrived that a group of graduate physics students authored a scientific paper demonstrating its implausibility. Makers of the Twister reboot would do well to steer clear of the bigger-than-the-last-movie excesses of sequels.