6 Ways Twisters Sets Up A Sequel

Twisters is a bona fide blockbuster, so the studio might not wait 28 years for another sequel – and the new movie has plenty of interesting setups for more stories in this world. The 2024 sequel stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kate Carter, a meteorologist struggling to move on from a past trauma, and Glen Powell as Tyler Owens, a charismatic storm chaser with a popular YouTube channel and more moxie than sense. Twisters is mostly a standalone sequel, with only tangential connections to the 1996 original, so a third movie would be a great way to bring these two stories together.

Although Twisters works well as a story on its own, it does leave the door open for a sequel with a few possible storylines. Once the story is all wrapped up and Kate heads to the airport to return to New York, she ends up staying in Oklahoma. This leaves all kinds of possibilities on the table: a continuation of her love story with Tyler; further research with her groundbreaking tornado-stopping technology; or even a team-up with Helen Hunt’s Jo Harding from the first film. The sky is the limit for a third Twister movie.

6 Kate Decided To Stay In Oklahoma

Embracing Rural Life in Oklahoma

At the end of Twisters, Kate arrives at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City so she can fly back to New York. However, before she can get on the plane, all the airport’s flights are delayed by strong winds in the area. So, Kate decides to stick around in Oklahoma for a while with Tyler. They head out of the airport, presumably to chase after the tornado that delayed her flight. The winds will only delay the flights by a few hours – or a couple of days at the most – so Kate might not stay in Oklahoma for long.

However, it's possible that Kate won’t end up going back to New York at all. She seems much more comfortable in the rural environments of Oklahoma than in the urban jungle of the Big Apple. The Twister threequel could reveal that after leaving the airport, Kate never went back to get on her flight. She could move back into the family farm and continue her research and experiments in Oklahoma.

5 Kate & Tyler's Romance Is Just Beginning

Navigating New Love and Old Wounds

Although Kate and Tyler didn’t kiss in Twisters’ final scene, it’s clear that there’s plenty of romantic chemistry between the two. As they left the airport together at the end of Twisters, their love story was just getting started. It would be interesting for a potential sequel to explore how their relationship evolves after giving in to their romantic tension. Tyler seems like the commitment-phobic type, and Kate might struggle to get back into a long-term relationship after her last boyfriend was killed by her failed weather experiment.

The sequel to Twisters could bring the franchise full circle with a similar story to the original film. The original film is dressed up as a disaster movie, but it’s really a romantic comedy. Twister took influence from His Girl Friday for the story of an estranged married couple trying to reconcile their relationship over their shared passion. Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin’s script just swapped out journalism for storm-chasing.

4 Ben's Story Could Make Kate A Storm-Chasing Superstar

From Profile Piece to Fame

Throughout the first two acts of Twisters, a British journalist named Ben was writing a profile of Tyler. Ben is one of the movie’s best characters, providing some of its funniest moments. While Tyler and Boone fearlessly drive into the eye of a tornado, living for the thrill, Ben sits in the back, terrified, and trying not to throw up. He was constantly asking Tyler questions about his storm-chasing adventures and taking copious notes to help him write up his eventual profile. However, in the end, he didn’t write the piece about Tyler.

In the third act of Twisters, Tyler tells Ben that he should write the profile on Kate instead. As a former stormchaser facing her fears and overcoming her trauma to get back in the field, Kate’s story is much more interesting than Tyler’s. The end credits reveal that Ben took on Tyler’s advice and wrote the article about Kate. The publication of this article could make Kate a superstar in the storm-chasing world and open the door to all kinds of new career opportunities in a potential threequel.

3 Kate's Technology Works – Now, She Has To Put It To Use

Tackling Larger Tornadoes Ahead

From the very beginning of Twisters, Kate was trying to create a working technology that could be used to dissipate tornadoes. In the first movie, the Hardings just wanted to be able to warn people about tornadoes before they arrived. But the sequel takes more of a sci-fi approach as Kate and her team attempt to actually kill tornadoes altogether. This technology involves driving into the eye of a tornado, rooting the truck to the ground, and releasing several barrels’ worth of chemicals that would remove the moisture from the tornado and ultimately bring it grinding to a halt.

Throughout the movie, the technology kept failing. In the opening sequence, not only did the tech not work; Kate’s entire crew got wiped out by the tornado they failed to stop. After embracing a second chance, Kate and Tyler drive out into tornado territory to test a new version of the equipment, but it fails once again. In the climactic sequence, Kate makes one last attempt at killing a tornado. She drives out into the tornado that’s destroying the town, releases the chemicals, and finally, it works. The truck is overturned, but she manages to stop the tornado.

Now that this technology is proven to work, that’s just the beginning. There are a lot of tornadoes out there causing a lot of destruction. Now that Kate has proven her tornado-killing technology works, she needs to take it all across America, slowing down twisters in her path. This sets up the third Twister movie to follow Kate on her adventures as she stops bigger and bigger tornadoes from leaving devastation in their wake.

2 Kate, Tyler & Javi Could All Work Together

Strengthening Bonds for Future Storms

There was a lot of tension between the central trio of Kate, Tyler, and Javi throughout Twisters. Kate was reluctant to get back to storm-chasing to help Javi. Javi secretly blamed Kate for his friends’ deaths, which he brought up during a particularly heated argument. From the moment Kate met Tyler, she thought he was an arrogant, self-obsessed celebrity (which is kind of true, but there’s more to him than that). Javi initially hated Tyler for his showboating and hated him even more when he became jealous of the romantic chemistry between Tyler and Kate.

By the end of the movie, they’d all made up. Kate and Javi moved on from their argument and mended their friendship. Kate and Tyler bonded over their shared passion for storm-chasing and had all but fallen in love. Even Tyler and Javi managed to overcome their differences with a mutual respect. The stage is set for these three characters to team up for more storm-chasing adventures in a sequel. Both of their teams had memorable supporting characters in them; it would be fun to see them combine into a supergroup in the sequel.

1 Twisters Leaves The Door Open For Helen Hunt To Appear In A Sequel

Potential for Legacy Character Return

All throughout Twisters, Kate ignores calls from her mom and avoids going home. During the second act of the movie, she finally goes back to the family farm to visit her mother. This initially seemed like the perfect setup for a cameo appearance by Helen Hunt as her storm-chasing character from the original movie, Jo Harding. However, those expectations were subverted when audiences were introduced to Kate’s mother and she was an original character, Cathy, played by the great Maura Tierney.

While it was disappointing that Hunt didn’t appear in the Twister sequel, given how integral and iconic she was in the original movie, it was probably for the best that she wasn’t revealed to be Kate’s mother. It would’ve been a let-down after all these years if Jo just ended up sitting around the house, trying to get in touch with her estranged daughter. That would’ve been a sad fate for such an awesome character. Jo should be out chasing tornadoes, not cooped up in the house, being ignored by her kid.

It’s become a common problem for legacy sequels to give beloved characters a miserable fate. The Star Wars sequel trilogy had a sad, divorced Han and Leia and a Luke Skywalker who’d given up on the Jedi way. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny turned its titular pulpy adventurer into a lonely divorcee and grieving father. It was refreshing for Twisters to avoid falling into this cliché – and it leaves the door open for Hunt to play Jo in a threequel that acts as a crossover between Twister and Twisters.

If Ben’s article does indeed turn Kate into a storm-chasing superstar, then Jo will undoubtedly take notice. The sequel to Twisters could combine the worlds of the first two films, much like Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire did with the old and new Ghostbusters casts, or X-Men: Days of Future Past did with the original X-Men cast and the prequel cast. It would be a joy to see Jo take Kate and Tyler under her wing as a sort of mentor.

What's Known About A Potential Twisters Sequel

Despite the critical and financial success of Twisters, there are not currently any plans for a Twisters sequel. This might not be surprising given how long the franchise took to deliver its first sequel. However, with Twisters proving to be one of the best success stories of the summer box office season, it also wouldn't be surprising if the studio was eager to continue with a property that the audience is enthusiastic about. While no confirmation on the sequel has been made, that is also certainly not a confirmation that it won't happen.

Many of the Twisters cast members have proven themselves to be hot commodities in Hollywood recently. It could be that a Twisters sequel will need to wait for Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones' schedules to clear up. However, some of the cast members have already shared their own thoughts on whether a Twisters sequel is likely or necessary.

What The Cast Said About A Twisters Sequel

As much as the special effects and natural disaster chaos provided some of the best moments of Twisters, the sequel also was elevated by its wonderful cast. The movie was able to find an ensemble of actors who were on the rise, catching them just as audiences were beginning to recognize them and their other exciting roles. While Twisters managed to succeed despite its original cast members, a Twisters sequel needs to bring back its cast.

Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones led the Twisters cast as Tyler and Kate, two characters fans would likely expect to return for the sequel. When asked about the potential of a sequel, both actors remained coy but seemed to suggest it was a possibility. Edgar-Jones joked that the sequel would have to keep on adding on to the title just as Twisters did with Twister. However, Powell was more direct with his response, suggesting that the audience would ultimately decide if the story continued (via Yahoo! Entertainment):

“That's really up to the audience with a movie like this. If the audience proves there's a hunger there, then we have an amazing team of people that will always figure out how to make another story."

If that is all it takes for the sequel to be greenlit, it would seem like fans can expect another movie soon. Twisters was a box office success as well as being embraced by fans. However, most of them would likely want to see a potential sequel take its time to get it right rather than rushing in for more just to capitalize on the initial success.

A follow-up to the 1996 original film Twister, Twisters is a sequel set years after the original, said to be fast-tracked by Steven Spielberg and Mark L. Smith, with Frank Marshal as producer. Little details exist about the film, but Helen Hunt is expected to reprise her role as Jo, with the film likely to pay homage to the late Bill Paxton. 

Director Lee Isaac Chung

Release Date July 19, 2024

Distributor(s) Universal Pictures , Warner Bros. Pictures

Runtime 117 Minutes