“Minari” filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung is in talks to direct “Twisters,” the sequel to the 1996 storm-chasing blockbuster starring Helen Hunt and the late Bill Paxton.
News broke in October that Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment had accelerated development on the project, with Mark L. Smith (“The Revenant”) signed on to write the sequel’s screenplay and Frank Marshall (“Jurassic World Dominion”) attached to produce through his Kennedy/Marshall Company. “Twisters” will be co-financed by Warner Bros. Pictures.
More from Variety
Chung is best known as the writer and director of 2020’s “Minari,” the intimate semi-autobiographical family drama about a Korean family navigating life on an Arkansas farm in the 1980s. The film went on to earn six Academy Award nominations, including for best picture. Chung himself was nominated for best director and best original screenplay, while the film’s star Yuh-Jung Youn made history with her best supporting actress Oscar win. The filmmaker is represented by CAA and Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner & Klein.
The original “Twister” was a massive hit, earning more than $494 million at the worldwide box office, which is often credited to the film’s ground-breaking special effects. The film was helmed by “Speed” director Jan De Bont and executive produced by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay by Michael Crichton.
The story centered on storm-chasing scientist Dr. Jo Harding (Hunt) and her estranged husband, Bill (Paxton), who reunite to finalize their divorce amid the approach of the most powerful storm in decades. When Jo reveals that she and their ragtag team of scientists (Bill was also a storm-chaser before taking a job as a weatherman) have readied a prototype for a ground-breaking tornado data-gathering device named Dorothy, Bill rejoins the team as they race against time — and their biggest rival Dr. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes), who stole the idea and built his own — to test the device. Also among the film’s ensemble cast are Jami Gertz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alan Ruck, Todd Field, Jeremy Davies and Lois Smith.
A sequel has been in the works since 2020, when it was announced that “Top Gun: Maverick” director Joseph Kosinski was in negotiations to direct the reboot, also produced by Marshall. When that iteration ultimately fell through — as did Hunt’s pitch for a reboot, which she’d proposed to direct — Universal and Amblin regrouped, with the new idea for “Twisters” coming together earlier this year.
Universal’s EVP of production Sara Scott and creative executive Jacqueline Garell will oversee the production for the studio, and Ashley Jay Sandberg will oversee for Kennedy/Marshall.
Deadline was first to report that Chung is in talks for the project.
Best of Variety
Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
