Nearly three decades after Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton put tornado-chasing on the map with 1996′s blockbuster hit “Twister,” the franchise is back this summer with another wild weather adventure.
In “Twisters,” now in theaters, the disaster thriller sequel showcases a new generation of Midwest weather fanatics who get swept up in tornado-fueled drama. Daisy Edgar-Jones leads the cast of new characters as Kate, a meteorologist who returns to her Oklahoma stamping grounds at the behest of her fellow storm-chasing pal Javi (Anthony Ramos). As they look to study the intense storms, a fiery “tornado wrangler” and YouTube star named Tyler (Glen Powell) and his gang join the fun to film crazy videos for the internet — including shooting fireworks into a tornado.
Director Lee Isaac Chung and the “Twisters” team had to endure some intense weather, including scorching temperatures and real tornadoes, while filming in Oklahoma last year.
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“We were filming during tornado season, and then that crept into summer when the temperatures just skyrocketed” to 106 degrees on some days, Chung told the Globe in a phone interview. Then the Hollywood strikes happened, delaying production and forcing them to shoot summer scenes in the winter.
“We were now filming actors wearing their tank tops and shorts in freezing weather,” Chung said. “We just kind of went through all of the elements.”
The Globe caught up with the Yale-educated, Oscar-nominated director to chat about making the tornado-filled sequel, how he got Boston native Maura Tierney to make a cameo, and more.
Q. I read that you had to endure actual tornadoes while filming “Twisters” in Oklahoma last year.
A. It always felt like life was imitating art. Sometimes I would wonder if this was just the nature of making a tornado movie, because it felt so chaotic. Lots of things were unpredictable and wild and would come out of nowhere. The weather was certainly one of those things.
Q. “Twisters” is your first big blockbuster project as a director. Did taking on a film of this scale excite or scare you?
A. The fear of doing it was certainly very exciting and invigorating because I wasn’t sure what exactly I would be facing. I had done an episode of “The Mandalorian” and “Skeleton Crew” for Lucasfilm, so I was able to get my feet wet to helm a feature film of this size. It felt very new. To me, that was exciting.
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I wanted to do something very different from what I had just done. I also wanted to create a movie that would be an adventure for people watching it. What better way to do that than to have an adventure myself?
Q. Wild weather stemming from climate change has become all too common. How important was it for you to highlight the humanity of people who face these types of disasters?
A. Incredibly important. I was often talking to the crew about how we don’t know what the world will be like when we’re actually releasing this movie. We even won’t know if we’ll have a very active, devastating tornado season when this movie is coming out, so given that unpredictability, which is a sad reality right now, I wanted to make sure that we are being sober and real about what tornadoes do, particularly to the people who are living through them.
I wanted to invest in that human side of the story, provide reverence for the power of nature, and make sure we don’t lose that heart of what the film is supposed to be — a summer blockbuster movie that’s meant to be fun. Ultimately, I felt as though that had to be our north star. I’m hoping we struck the right balance.
Q. The movie features Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones, and Anthony Ramos, to name a few, but I was excited to see Maura Tierney make an appearance.
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A. I wanted to work with her very badly. I had to convince her to please do this movie because she should be taking on projects that are honestly much bigger, but we just got along really well. She said she would do this for me as kind of a cameo. We had a lot of fun together. She’s a true artist, so it just felt like I was really learning a lot from her, and so was the rest of our cast.
Q. After “Twisters,” do you hope to do another big blockbuster movie or would like a more intimate story?
A. I’d love to make another movie like this, and that’s what I’m hoping to do. But I never close myself off to whatever is really speaking to me deep down. I’ll have to wait and see.
Interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
“Twisters” is now in theaters.
Matt Juul can be reached at [email protected].