‘Twisters’ Breaks the Streaming Record Held by ‘Oppenheimer’

Twisters, Glen Powell’s sequel to Twister, has broken a very important record. After premiering on Peacock 14 days ago, the film has become the streamer’s most-watched film. Christopher Nolan’s Academy Award-winning biographical drama Oppenheimer previously held the record, but Powell’s tornado thriller is one of the biggest films of the year and has outperformed the historical biopic on this side of the streaming universe. Premiering in July of this year, the summer movie made over $371 million at the box office from a $155 million production budget. The critical response has been good as well, with critics giving it a 75% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Per Deadline, Twisters joins other successful titles in Peacock’s Pay 1 film catalog, such as Despicable Me 4 and The Fall Guy: The Extended Cut. Twisters is set to remain until March 2025. The Deadline piece reports that Five Nights at Freddy’s holds the record for a Peacock premiere, but given that the film was a day-and-date release (released simultaneously in theaters and the streaming platform), it doesn’t enter the same ranking as Twisters. Pay 1 refers to the window of time when a theatrical release becomes exclusively available on a streamer. Twisters will spend its first four months on Peacock, then 10 months on Prime Video, then four months on Peacock again.

Twisters follows Powell’s Tyler Owens, a storm influencer who teams up with Kate Carter during tornado season in Oklahoma to try and understand an outbreak of the natural phenomenon, and perhaps do some analysis of their own. The film was directed by Lee Isaac Chung from a script by Mark L. Smith, and it stars Powell alongside Daisy Edgar-Jones, Brandon Perea, Anthony Ramos, and Maura Tierney.

While it shares a similar typography and title, and it was sold as a sequel, the film doesn’t fully connect with Jan de Bont’s 1996 natural disaster thriller. Yes, one Dorothy device is seen in Twisters (the container of hundreds of flying detectors in Twister)., but that’s about everything connecting the two films.

‘Twisters’ Is Another Winner for Universal Pictures

Although Warner Bros. distributed the film overseas, Universal Pictures was the sole distributor in North America, a territory where Twisters amassed $267.8 million. Oppenheimer was also a Universal Pictures release, so this means that once again the distributor is cashing in on another record.

For Universal, the other big winners of the year were Despicable Me 4 and Kung Fu Panda 4, two animated franchise entries that had to compete with Disney and Warner Bros., two studios that won big bucks with franchise entries this year. This means that, in order to compete in the market, big studios are forced to make everything but original films. It’s not good news for filmmakers with original stories to tell, because they will have to figure out a way to incorporate their personal style in what are basically franchise templates.

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2025 doesn’t look like it will represent a change. Superman, Jurassic World: Rebirth, Lilo & Stitch, and Captain America: Brave New World are all based on previous IPs that have worked in the past, and which will surely bring in millions. They will also be some of the most successful films of the year, proving that original films are not set to appear in the box office rankings of the year. You can stream Twisters through the link below:

Watch Twisters

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3.5/5

Twisters

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. 

Release Date

July 19, 2024

Runtime

117 Minutes

Director

Lee Isaac Chung