Twisters: Daisy Edgar-Jones lands a starring role in Lee Isaac Chung’s “new chapter” of the action thrill ride

Daisy Edgar-Jones is ready to ride the spiral for Universal Pictures as the lead of Twisters, a “new chapter” inspired by Jan De Bont’s 1996 disasterpiece. Edgar-Jones is making a name for herself after starring in Normal People and Where the Crawdads Sing. Twisters will be her first tentpole project, with Lee Isaac Chung (Minari) directing from a script by Mark L. Smith (The Revenant). Frank Marshall is producing through Kennedy/Marshall Company.

Jan De Bont’s Twister is a beloved action film from Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures. Twister stars Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton as storm chasers looking to make their mark on science by proving their concept for a tornado monitoring device. Throughout the special effects-driven thrill ride, Hunt and Paxton and a ragtag group of scientists place their lives on the line to collect information about tornado movement patterns.

Previously, we’d heard the plan was to bring back Helen Hunt as Dr. Jo Harding, with the plot focusing on her daughter with Bill Paxton’s character, who has caught the same “storm-chasing bug” that her parents did. However, that is no longer the case.

Twisters is a “new chapter” for the IP, with no plans for old characters to return. Instead, Edgar-Jones will star in the project as a former storm chaser who works a desk job after surviving a disastrous tornado encounter. However, she will soon be forced to embrace the winds of change and begin the chase anew!

While Twisters will be a “new chapter” for the IP, Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment were initially developing a reboot of the movie. The studios had been in talks with Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski to helm the project, but he later dropped out in favor of his Formula One racing movie starring Brad Pitt. New Twisters director Lee Isaac Chung has a personal connection with destructive storms. As a child, he grew up on a farm in rural Arkansas and had plenty of experience taking cover in storm cellars when tornadoes would pass through. This personal connection was a hit with studio executives, and he became the top choice for the gig. The Twisters release date of July 19, 2024, will find the “new chapter” hitting theaters close to thirty years after the original film’s release, which grossed nearly $500 million worldwide and was the second-highest-grossing film of the year. Sadly, several members of the original cast are no longer with us, notably Bill Paxton and Philip Seymour Hoffman.