It was a happy ending this weekend for everyone involved in “Twisters,” the non-quite-sequel/not-quite-reboot of “Twister,” the 1996 hit and Oscar-nominee for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound. Directed by two-time Oscar nominee Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”) and written by Oscar nominee Mark L. Smith (“The Revenant”) with a “story by” credit from “Top Gun: Maverick” filmmaker Joseph Kosinski, the storm-chasing action-adventure picture starring Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones, and Anthony Ramos plus a ragtag team of adventurers including Katy O’Brien, Sasha Lane, David Corenswet, and Tunde Adebimpe out-performed its predicted numbers, scoring a domestic gross of $80 million, plus an additional $43 million internationally, culminating in a $123 million haul.
Well, a happy ending for everyone except for Powell’s character of Tyler Owens, who gets to chase Edgar-Jones’s Kate Carter into Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City and … not kiss her. (The implication is that they are forever bosom buddies in tornado love, and maybe something more will grow between them.) Most in the audience probably expected a smooch, especially those who had seen set footage of the two stars snogging that had already leaked online. Why the cut? Because apparently producer Steven Spielberg said so.
In an interview with Collider, the actors put the “blame” on the Oscar-winning legend, saying that removing the moment was his idea. Edgar-Jones quickly added that she agreed: “I think it stops the film feeling too clichéd, actually. I think there’s something really wonderful about it feeling like there’s a continuation. This isn’t the end of their story. They’re united by their shared passion for something.”
Powell also gave a thumbs-up to the suggestion, adding, “I also think that this movie is not about them finding love, it’s returning Kate to the thing that she loves, which is storm chasing. So that’s what you have at the end of the movie. They share this thing, and her passion is reinvigorated, and her sense of home is reinvigorated.”
He continued, “I feel like a kiss would be sort of unrepresentative of the right goal at the end of the movie. And it is a good Spielberg note. It’s why that kid is still in this game. It’s amazing.”
Quit sucking up to the boss, Glen! You are a big star now, act like it! And hopefully we’ll see Tyler and Kate rolling around in the hay in “Twisters II”! In the meantime, you can poke around social media and YouTube to see fans demanding that the studio “Release The Kissing Cut!”
The actors aren’t the only ones who discussed the non-kiss. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly before the release, “Twisters” director Chung said test audiences found the smooch unnecessary.
“I feel like audiences are in a different place now in terms of wanting a kiss or not wanting a kiss,” Chung said. “I actually tried the kiss, and it was very polarizing — and it’s not because of their performance of the kiss.”
Of the film’s actual conclusion, sans kiss, Chung added, “I think it’s a better ending. And I think that people who want a kiss within it, they can probably assume that these guys will kiss someday. And maybe we can give them privacy for that. In a way, this ending is a means to make sure that we really wrap things up with it in a celebratory, good way.”
In that round of press, Edgar-Jones said, “It felt nice and refreshing to not have to end up on that beat because what you’re ending it on is two individuals who are so equal in their love and interest and intelligence and understanding of weather.”
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