Joseph Kosinski in Talks to Helm Twister Reboot at Universal

The late ’90s saw a major resurgence in the natural disaster genre and one of the best of the era was 1996’s Twister starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt and in looking back at the film’s major box office success, Universal is eying a reboot of the blockbuster with Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick) in talks to direct, according to Variety.

The original film followed Paxton’s Bill “The Extreme” Harding and Hunt’s Dr. Joanne Harding, two storm chasers on the brink of divorce who decide to team up to chase a record outbreak of tornadoes in Oklahoma and deliver their advance weather alert system in the path of the twister to track more storms.

Plot details for the upcoming reboot are currently unknown, with no writers currently attached to pen the script for the project, but sources report that Universal is looking to actively develop this project with Kosinski behind the camera. The 1996 film was helmed by Speed director Jan De Bont, executive produced by Steven Spielberg (Schindler’s List) and co-written by Anne-Marie Martin (Prom Night) and Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton.

Frequent Spielberg collaborator Frank Marshall (Jurassic World: Dominion) is set to produce the project and is currently meeting with potential screenwriters while senior VP of production Sara Scott will oversee the project for the studio.

Upon release in 1996, Twister was a major box office success, grossing over $495 million at the global box office on its estimated $88-92 million budget and received mixed reviews from critics, all of whom praised the film’s groundbreaking special effects, which earned the film two Oscar nominations for Best Special Effects and Best Sound. The blockbuster was spun off into an attraction at Universal Studios Florida in 1998 with filmed introductions from Paxton and Hunt, but was shut down in 2015 and replaced with Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon.

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