Glen Powell has yet another stellar hit, perhaps the biggest to showcase his star power, in the disaster film Twisters. A sequel in spirits to Bill Paxton’s 1996 film Twister, the film stars Powell as Tyler Owens opposite Daisy Edgar-Jones, who plays Kate Carter. While the sequel film is all set to become a bigger hit than the original, the film had to make sure that it just wasn’t a visual spectacle.
The editor of the film, Terilyn A. Shropshire, revealed that she had to balance the human element and the spectacle of a tornado in the film. She made it work for the film, helping it to avoid a crisis similar to that faced by Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
Glen Powell’s Twisters Had To Be Careful With Its Editing To Make It More Relatable
Glen Powell‘s Twisters is having an amazing run at the box office and fans really hope Deadpool & Wolverine doesn’t tank its current success. The film follows a group of storm chasers fighting a tornado in Oklahoma. Minari fame Lee Isaac Chung helmed the film based on the story by Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski.
Chung entrusted the editing work of the film to Terilyn A. Shropshire, whom he met at a talent inclusion initiative, Academy GOLD. Shropshire shared that it was an incredible experience working on the film, despite the challenges she faced. She shared that she had to balance between the action on screen and the emotions conveyed to the audience.
To make sure that the viewers had an emotionally immersive journey, Shropshire and the makers made each tornado into a character and gave them as much distinction as the human characters in the narrative. She shared that the VFX team also played a part as their videos for every tornado were unique. Shropshire shared with IndieWire:
We had to make the audience feel that they were taking this emotional immersive journey with the characters. Each tornado is a character, and we wanted them to have as much distinction as the human characters. My favorite thing from the VFX side is that at the end of production, they gave me a video for every tornado. It’s like a police lineup, and they’re spinning, and you can see that they’re all individually unique.
Shropshire shared that she balanced out the intense action scenes with moments of relief, sharing that if it were only action, it wouldn’t be a memorable film. She also had to make sure that the drama did not linger on for too much. Shropshire explained her complicated editing process:
You want to give the audience moments to process because often when I watch a film that’s only moments of intensity, I don’t feel anything at the end. You have to remove things and not sit on them too long, because you don’t want the audience to get impatient and say, ‘When’s the next tornado?’ It was very tricky.
Shropshire shared that in order to edit a brilliant disaster film like Twisters, she had to step in the viewer’s shoes. She described her process as “surgical,” and it appears that she executed her task with the precision of a surgeon, as the film served a great theatrical experience.
Glen Powell’s Twisters Avoided The Mistake That Godzilla x Kong Made
Twisters had a phenomenal opening at the box office and received positive reviews. A large part of the success behind the movie was owed to the human element in the film. In comparison, a film like Godzilla x Kong couldn’t receive an overwhelming response like Twisters despite both films being visual marvels.
The biggest criticism of the movie was the lack of any other factor that held the attention of the audience, other than the monsters fighting each other. The website consensus for the film on Rotten Tomatoes reads:
Come to Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire for the sheer monster-mashing spectacle — and stay for that too, because the movie doesn’t have much else to offer.
Twisters reportedly earned $80.5 million domestically on the opening weekend, making it a huge commercial success (via Variety). The number for the film is comparable to Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer, which grossed $82.5 million on its debut weekend.
Twisters is now running successfully in theaters, while Godzilla x Kong is available on Max.
