‘Twisters’ Whips Up Huge Box Office Storm With Record $80.5M Opening

Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters is whipping up huge winds at the box office, with forecasters predicting a far better than expected domestic opening of $80.5 million in North America. That’s even up from Saturday’s already massive estimate of $74.6 million.

The record-breaking movie, playing in 4,151 theaters, easily boasts the top domestic opening ever for a natural disaster film, not adjusted for inflation. (The current crown holder is Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow, which bowed to $68.44 million in 2004.) It’s also the third biggest start of the year to date behind Inside Out 2 ($154.2 million) and Dune: Part Two ($82.5 million) after edging out Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ($80 million).

The turnout for Twisters cements the rising star status of Hollywood’s man-of-the-moment Glen Powell, along with Daisy Edgar-Jones and Anthony Ramos (the trio lead the ensemble cast). It’s also a notable win for Chung, the acclaimed filmmaker of indie hit Minari. The film’s demos are impressive: It is playing evenly among females and males, as well as appealing to both younger and older adults in what could lead to a new franchise. The film’s critics score on Rotten Tomatoes is a decent 77 percent, but its audience score is much higher at 92 percent, in line with an A- from Cinemascore.

Twisters arrives 28 years after Twister, the envelope-pushing feature that broke ground for marrying visual effects with practical effects. It starred the late Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt, and hailed from filmmaker Jan de Bont. The original film was a box office juggernaut, opening to $41 million ($82 million in today’s dollars) and ending its run with $494.5 million globally ($992.08 million today).

Chung shot Twisters in Oklahoma, the heart of Tornado Alley. And, not surprisingly, the movie is doing its biggest business in areas impacted by the dangerous weather phenomenon (Friday’s top theater was in Oklahoma). Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures are behind the feature, with Universal handling domestic distribution and Warners International taking overseas (the movie’s opening is a coup for Amblin).

While Twisters became a Category 5 storm domestically, the same can’t be said for overseas, where the film is coming in slightly behind expectations. It took in $27.1 million from 76 markets this weekend for a cume of $42.7 million (it opened in some markets ahead of its domestic debut). That puts the global total at $132.2 million against a net budget of $155 million. It’s scoring its biggest numbers in Latin America and Australia, along with the U.K, but bombed in China with $1.5 million.

Heading into the weekend, tracking services had Twisters starting off with $40 million to $50 million domestically. Some distributors believed it would go higher, but no one predicted $70 million-plus, much less $80 million.

Twisters easily won the weekend in North America and is a sizeable gift, considering the tough comparisons over the same weekend last year when Barbie and Oppenheimer opened, setting off the Barbenheimer effect. There was no chance that this weekend was ever going to match last year, but it could have been far worse had Twisters not overperformed.

Elsewhere, Universal and Illumination’s Despicable Me 4 raced past the $500 million mark globally. Domestically, it held at second place in its third outing with an estimated $23.8 million for a cume of $159.5 million. Overseas, the animated movie took in another $52 million from 79 markets for a worldwide haul of $574.4 million. Excluding China, the family pic is pacing on par with Minions and Minions: The Rise of Gru, and is ahead of the the last two Despicable Me films. (In recent days, the Despicable Me/Minions series became the first animated franchise in history to cross the $5 billion mark at the global box office.

Talk about the theatrical animated marketplace being back in big way: Pixar and Disney’s Inside Out 2 remained a powerhouse in its sixth outing and placed third with an estimated $12.8 million as it prepares to jump the $600 million mark domestically on its way to becoming the top-grossing animated film of all time both in North America and globally. It’s now just days away from surpassing Frozen II’s $1.451 billion in worldwide ticket sales, including $609 million domestically. Inside Out 2 — Pixar’s top-grossing film ever — finished Sunday with a domestic tally of $596.4 million for a worldwide total of of $1.443 billion.

Neon’s breakout horror hit Longlegs continued to win over moviegoers in its second outing, falling a scant 47 percent to $11.7 million for a 10-day domestic total of $44.7 million against a budget shy of $10 million budget.

Apple Original Films’ Fly Me to the Moon couldn’t boast the same in its second weekend. The romantic-comedy adventure tumbled a steep 65 percent to $3.3 million for a 10-day domestic total of $16.4 million. Overseas, it earned another $3.8 million from 58 markets for a foreign tally of $14.3 million and $30.7 million globally.

Fly Me to the Moon placed sixth on the domestic chart as Paramount’s hit prequel A Quiet Place: Day One rounded out the top five with $6.1 million in its fourth outing for a domestic total $127.6 million and $241.4 million globally.

July 21, 7:20 a.m. Updated with revised estimates.
July 21, 9:10 a.m. Updated with revised estimates.

This story was originally published July 20 at 7:42 a.m.