Is Twisters a remake or a sequel?

Almost 30 years after the world’s most infamous tornado, bad weather has made its return – but is Twisters a remake or sequel of the hit 1996 movie?

Starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton, 1996 disaster movie Twister took the world by storm, following Jo Harding, a meteorologist on the brink of divorce from her husband, Bill. Before separating, they team up to develop a weather alert system by putting themselves in the paths of violent tornadoes.

Almost 30 years later and a similarly named film, Twisters, is now in theaters… and for many fans, the differences between the new movie and the original are slim.

Now that fans officially need to be scared of the weather again, is Twisters a remake of the Helen Hunt classic, or is it a sequel?

Is Twisters a remake or a sequel?

Twisters is “inspired by” the 1996 movie Twister, not a remake or sequel. In other words, it’s a “reimagination.”

During an interview with Vogue [via Deadline] in December 2023, star Glen Powell stated: “We’re not trying to recreate the story from the first one. It’s a completely original story. There are no characters from the original movie back, so it’s not really a continuation. It’s just its own standalone story in the modern day.”

Co-star Anthony Ramos had also previously echoed this sentiment while promoting Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, telling Dexerto: “Twisters is a different cast, you know, a different cast and Lee Isaac Chung is a very incredible director. He’s shooting this on film too, so, I mean, this movie’s gonna look beautiful – it already looks beautiful. So I’m very excited about his vision and what he’s doing with the movie.”

Twisters is officially described as a “a current-day chapter” to the original 1996 movie, with Daisy Edgar-Jones playing Kate Cooper, a storm-chaser who now studies their patterns in New York following her own tragic twister tale.

Katie is enticed back to the open fields by friend Javi (Ramos), who allegedly has a groundbreaking new system he wants to test out. The pair are then set to meet social media sensation Tyler Owens (Powell), who identifies himself as a professional storm-chaser. As expected, the trio meets chaos head-on in the form of a life-threatening tornado.

In our review, we described Twisters as “A surface-level storm that’s still a good time,” adding “Make no mistake – it’s a weak script with only a few moments of genuine heart, but if you’re looking for a disaster movie that’s likely to get your heart pounding at least once, then it’s a contender.”

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