‘Twisters’ storms the box office, whipping up $80 million in ticket sales

“Twisters” ripped up the box office field this weekend, churning out about $80.5 million in domestic ticket sales in its inaugural weekend, according to market research firm Comscore.

Lee Isaac Chung’s standalone sequel of the beloved 1996 film — this time starring Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Anthony Ramos — landed in first place for the weekend, easily surpassing initial industry tracking figures of about $50 million for the film’s initial outing. It marks the biggest domestic opening ever for a natural disaster film, surpassing “The Day After Tomorrow” ($68.44 million in 2004). “Twisters” is the third biggest opening weekend of 2024 domestically behind “Inside Out 2” ($154.2 million) and “Dune: Part 2” ($82.5 million), and just ahead of “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ($80 million).

In what’s shaping up to be a summer blockbuster, Edgar-Jones stars in “Twisters” as a storm chaser who had a terrible encounter with a tornado years ago. She seeks refuge working as a scientist in New York City, but her friend, played by Ramos, lures her back to Oklahoma to help test a new tracking system. They cross paths with a thrill-seeking social media influencer, played by Powell, who thrives on posting his dangerous storm-chasing exploits on the internet. True to the original, Powell’s and Edgar-Jones’ characters experience romantic energy.

The action adventure should have a long tail — providing more lift for Donna Langley’s Universal Pictures, which spent more than $155 million to make the effects-heavy film.

“I’m just going to say it: It was just a perfect storm of things that came together to give us an extraordinary weekend,” Jim Orr, Universal’s domestic distribution president said in a brief interview Sunday.

Disaster movies rarely come back, and those that do often end up as disappointments. But the strong performance of “Twisters” left that industry notion in a pile of rubble.

The weekend figure of $80.5 million is nearly double the start of the original film, “Twister,” which starred the late Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. Directed by Jan de Bont, the first movie went on to make $500 million in worldwide ticket sales and become a fan favorite playing in syndication on movie channels.

Chung’s remake received strong critical reviews and audience scores, helping it become a breakout in a troubled stretch for theaters, which are still trying to rebound from the damage wrought by COVID-19 shutdowns and last year’s actors’ and writers’ strikes, which delayed the release of several tentpoles.

The film played on 4,151 screens this weekend.

“Lee Isaac Chung crafted an exhilarating and exciting story that is best seen on a big screen with the immersive sound and visuals and everything that a theater experience entails,” Orr said. “On top of that, we have an incredibly charming and amazing cast … who worked incredibly hard — they were out there promoting [the movie] like crazy and the soundtrack was everywhere.”

The country music soundtrack, with songs from artists including Luke Combs, Chris Stapleton, Miranda Lambert and Jelly Roll, helped ground the film with a Midwestern feel.

“The music was very well received, as you can imagine, and not only by country music fans,” Orr said.

The film reached a broad audience that was evenly split between male and female movie-goers. Three-quarters of viewers were older than 25, although the movie overperformed among women under the age of 25, Orr said.

Universal also nabbed the second-place finish for the weekend, “Despicable Me 4” with $28 million in sales. That Illumination film has generated $259 million in domestic box office since its release earlier this month. The film about reformed villain Gru has notched nearly $575 million in global ticket sales, according to Universal.

Disney’s “Inside Out 2” continues to perform well, raking in $12.8 million this weekend, boosting its domestic haul to nearly $600 million. Worldwide, the Pixar film has topped $1.4 billion, according to Box Office Mojo.

For “Twisters,” Universal has domestic distribution, Warner Bros. has the international sales. According to Comscore, Warner Bros. reported the global weekend debut generated an estimated $27.1 million. The film played on 23,535 international screens and in 76 overseas markets.

The director, Chung, grew up in rural Arkansas, where tornadoes are a fact of life.

He and his crew filmed this summer’s tentpole in Oklahoma’s Tornado Alley during the height of tornado season, bringing logistical difficulties and frequent delays due to weather. The team also had to grapple with the strike of Hollywood writers and actors, which halted production with 17 days to go.

“It was a very high-pressure shoot,” Chung told The Times. “It ended up being so tiring and grueling that now I dismiss the idea that any particular film is going to be a fun shoot just because it deals with a certain topic.”

Staff writers Josh Rottenberg and Ryan Faughnder contributed to this report.