Is Twisters a remake?

Almost 30 years after the world’s most infamous tornado, it’s set to make a return – but is Twisters a remake 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 set to debut later in 2024, with its first trailer dropping during Super Bowl Sunday.

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? Here’s everything you need to know.

Is Twisters a remake?

Twisters is set to be “inspired by” the 1996 movie Twister, not a remake or sequel.

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 describes 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.

Katies 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.

So far, the trailer has landed well with fans, with one YouTube comment explaining: “My husband and I both started shrieking with excitement when we saw this ad during the Super Bowl. The OG Twister is our comfort movie and we can’t wait to see if this one joins the rotation (pun intended).”