Twisters Movie Doesn't Reference Climate Change, Director Says Movies Shouldn't Have A Message

The new natural disaster movie Twisters comes to theaters this Friday, but don't expect for the film to talk about climate change. Director Lee Isaac Chung said it was important for him to avoid having Twisters come across with a message.

"I just wanted to make sure that with the movie, we don't ever feel like (it) is putting forward any message," he told CNN. "I just don't feel like films are meant to be message-oriented."

"I wanted to make sure that we are never creating a feeling that we're preaching a message, because that's certainly not what I think cinema should be about," he added. "I think it should be a reflection of the world."

According to National Geographic, "there is no real evidence that tornadoes are happening more often" than they did before. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a July 2023 paper that the yearly number of reported tornadoes is stable. The NOAA said the influence of climate change on tornadoes is "far more difficult to discern" than temperature and precipitation trends.

"So far, the majority of research stops short of connecting historical changes in tornado behavior to a warming climate," the government group said.

At the same time, evidence continues to mount that supercell thunderstorms that produce tornadoes are becoming more frequent in the "Tornado Alley" part of the US. Studies have also suggested tornadoes are occurring more frequently in some places during months not normally associated with tornadoes.

Dozens of people died in the US as a result of tornado activity in the first half of 2024 alone. Victor Gensini, an associate professor of meteorology and severe weather at Norther Illinois University, told USA Today that additional research is required to understand how much climate change is affecting tornado activity. "I think it's safe to say climate change plays a role, but is it 10%, 5% or 1%, I don't think we know that right now without a bigger push to understand the role of climate change in these events," Gensini said.

Twisters stars Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos, and Maura Tierney. It comes 28 years after the 1996 original Twister was released, starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. The late Jurassic Park writer Michael Crichton wrote the screenplay for the original movie with his then-wife Anne-Marie Martin.