Jan de Bont, 79, has only directed five movies in his career, including “Speed” and “Twister.” He hasn’t helmed anything since 2003’s “Lara Croft: Cradle of Life.”
A sequel for “Twister” was announced last December, with “Minari” filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung set to direct. It’s an odd project for Chung given that he’s primarily known for his well-reviewed indie films.
Speaking with Inverse, in of his rare interviews, de Bont confirms that is not a fan of this upcoming sequel, saying that he’ll have someone else watch Twisters for him when it opens next July.
When things fell from the sky, there were real things falling from a helicopter…If you film a car escaping a tornado in a hail storm, it was real ice that came at us. It’s a movie that cannot be remade…That would never, ever happen again.
De Bont’s concerns have to do with the original “Twister” using practical effects, which has become a rare thing in today’s CGI-dominated landscape:
Every shot was a fortune…It would take three days to transfer all that information onto film. Right now it’s fast, but in the beginning, it was super slow. And we had to be so careful to get the shots done before the movie opened.
“Twister” was a big hit in 1996, having grossed $240 million — its effects were so accomplished that a slew of films tried to copy it in the years after its release. It would end up being nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound, losing the former to Independence Day.
De Bont also issued some skepticism about the recent trend of indie directors graduating to lead studio blockbusters:
Don’t forget that the main reason they’re finding younger, inexperienced people is they want to be able to fully control them. They want them to have really good ADs, writers, producers, cinematographers so that they have all the help they can get. But ultimately, the studio is going to tell them what’s in the movie. I know that firsthand.
One of the more concerning trends I’ve seen in the last decade or so years is that of a young and talented indie filmmaker selling his or herself out to the big studios.
It doesn’t help that any filmmaker that shows a hint of promise quickly gets sucked up into the Marvel/Disney/Sequel vacuum. The likes of Barry Jenkins, Chloe Zhao, Ryan Coogler, Michael Sarnoski, Destin Daniel Cretton, and many more, have all recently sold their creative souls for corporate product.
If Chung were the promising auteur that many critics claimed that he was, then “Twisters” wouldn’t have been the next path chosen. One must ask, would Jonathan Glazer, David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson, Joel Coen, Wes Anderson, and Quentin Tarantino ever sign on to direct “Mufasa: The Lion King”? “Twisters” “Eternals”? Of course not.
These are tough times right now in the industry, even for critically-acclaimed newbie filmmakers, and if you truly want to make the big bucks then, much like Chung, you need to sell your soul to the devil.
Chung’s “Twisters” is currently in post-production and is set to be released in July 2024.
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.