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SYFY WIRE twister

Daisy Edgar-Jones caught in vortex of 'Twister' sequel from Universal and Amblin

The follow-up to the 1996 hit will touch down into theaters next summer.

By Josh Weiss
Daisy Edgar-Jones; BILL PAXTON AND HELEN HUNT in Twister (1996)

Universal and Amblin's upcoming sequel to Twister has officially begun to fill out its cyclone-chasing cast. 

Deadline reports that Where the Crawdads Sing star Daisy Edgar-Jones will headline the project — officially titled Twisters — which is currently scheduled to hit the big screen next summer. Following the departure of Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick), Oscar nominee Lee Isaac Chung (Minari) was tapped to direct the follow-up, whose screenplay is being written by Mark L. Smith (The Midnight Sky).

Frank Marshall, longtime collaborator of Steven Spielberg and a co-founder of Amblin Entertainment, is on board as producer. Warner Bros., meanwhile, has agreed to put up additional funding.

RELATED: Predicting tornadoes and flying cows: The science behind 'Twister'

Written by Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) and his then-wife Anne-Marie Martin (Halloween II), the original Twister was a box office smash upon its wide release in the summer of 1996, bringing in close to half a billion dollars worldwide against a budget of $92 million. It also nabbed a pair of Oscar nominations for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound at the 69th Academy Awards.

Jan de Bont (known for his work on action touchstones like Die Hard and Speed) directed the blockbuster, which co-starred the likes of Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cary Elwes, Jami Gertz, Alan Ruck, Todd Field, and Jeremy Davies.

Sitting down with Collider in late 2020, de Bont reflected on the production of Twister, which made use of the burgeoning CGI effects pioneered by Jurassic Park three years before.

"I think action movies today [use] too [many] visual effects. I mean, I know that Twister was one of the first ones. But I also could already see the incredible dangers looming up," he said. "It's that so many things would be taken over by visual effects instead of physical effects. There's nothing you can duplicate better by visual effects if you can do it with a real action sequence. There's car crashes. I've seen that happen for real. It is so much better. There's no comparison."

We'll get swept up in a torrent of tornadoes when Twisters arrives on the big screen July 19, 2024 — nearly three decades after the original.

In the mood for more movies where nature fights back against vainglorious humans? The Birds, Piranha, Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park III, The Core, Jurassic World, and Nope are all streaming on Peacock!