This is the most dramatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast. Chris Harrison Lawrence E. Mc coomedy from the home office in Austin, Texas, just outside of Tornado Alley. Technically, the reason I bring that up the movie Twisters has dropped like an F five tornado that has ripped through the box office to the tune of eighty point five million. Elsie expectations were a mere fifty million, which would have been huge. It's almost doubled that. This is phenomenal.
I'm so happy about this. Also, we're going to get into your knowledge of tornadoes. Is an F five the biggest it is.
Technically, I think there has been whispers of an F six wow.
Twist for Twisters.
Yes, the next one, Twisters is but this I have seen this movie for the record, els has not. I am going back to see it with her tomorrow night because it's that good.
Wow. So this makes me so happy. It makes me happy when movies do well at the box because I love movies and I don't want movies to go away as an art. There's a lot of talk in our industry right now about how well where people get their entertainment is just shifting, like instead of watching comedy movies at the theater, people watch comedy on TikTok on the one hand.
True.
On the other hand, can we know that when we're not giving people any good comedies at the box office? Like there used to be a different I mean, I'm aging myself. I guess I'm a mid thirties millennial, but not that long ago. It shows you how quickly things have changed. I remember growing up and we would look in the newspaper and be like, what's coming out this weekend? And look at the show times, and you would regularly say, what's coming out this weekend because every weekend there were
like three new movies out. Now we're so limited, and I do think that when a movie like Twisters beats expectations hit so big, when it's just fun and joy and just a great watch, that people will go see it. And we need to get more movies in the theaters to give people the opportunity. Because here's the difference for me on movies versus thirty second videos on TikTok. TikTok can be fun, it's its own thing. I don't think that things stick with you in the short form the way that they.
Do like that at all.
Think about the way we all quote movies. We watch movies when we're younger, and we go on quoting them forever, and we reference them. And movies can change your outlook. They affect you on a deep level. They shape you, and I don't want to lose that.
Now.
I haven't seen it was Twister's a movie that shapes you well.
I know it should well. But there's going to be a line that comes out of this and I can't wait for you to see it where Glenn Paalll says, have you ever driven a car before? That will last? That's going to be one of those levels. It's quotable. It's so good. First of all, I think we have to acknowledge Glenn Powell is a bona fide star.
Now he is living for him.
He is such a a grind for the guy who I didn't realize he was a child star, a young.
Man Jason, one of the Spy Kids movies. I didn't realize that either. I knew he'd been in the business for about ten years. I didn't know it was longer.
Taylor, who's twenty years old, our daughter, was like, oh yeah, I remember him. And Spy Kids. I didn't realize he had been doing this that long, and so, like many stories in this business, it took a long time to become an overnight sensation. And obviously Top Gun Maverick really put him on the scene. He's been buddy, Well.
He's having his moment, his long a moment he's long worked for.
Hot take. Is this true or not? Is Glenn Powell James Marsden that finally got his shot at being a leading man?
Well, I think if you're saying that, then he's not James Marsden, because that's James Marsden's whole story. James Marsden is always. No. I don't think he is, because what movie has has Glenn Powell been this in? James Marsden's thing was always he was the super good looking, nice guy in the movie who didn't end up with the robble loser like the Notebook. There's nothing wrong with him, but he didn't get the girl right, and he was that in a couple movies. I don't think Glenn Powell's
been that guy. He's actually the guy who seems to get the girl.
He is now. I just wonder if James Marsden had ever gotten his top gun Maverick like a shot to a.
Like a career shift, a different type of.
An action star to be so because Glenn Powell and I heard somebody else say, this is Glenn Powell the new Matthew McConaughey, and that actually tracks he is a Texan. Both went to u T. Both have that just big thousand watts smile that glean in their eye, that just captivates you. Guys want to hang out with them, Women want to be with him, that kind of leading man.
Look, I think he's a baby of Matthew McConaughey, Matt Damon and Tom Cruise.
And his second cousin to James Marsa.
Well, I don't think he has the like quirky aura of Matthew McConaughey. Matthew's kind of got a personality to him that I don't think Glen Powell has. And then he's got a little bit of action in him because of movies like Twisters, so that gives that's a little bit that Matt Damon action. And then he's got like the appealability, the broad appealability of Tom Cruise, but he also has the producer side of him, which both Matt Damon and Tom Cruise have done some producing, and on
that note, I give him the credit. I think the reason Glenn Powell is having his moment now is because he has taken a very proactive role in being like in shaping the parts he's taking the movies he's doing, in adding that producer element and like going after like he basically and I wonder if Tom Cruise gave him this advice because they've become close since Tom actually convinced him. Do you know the story that he convinced him to do Top Gun Maverick?
Yeah, because didn't he want another part.
He wanted the Miles Teller part, and so he wasn't going to do it. And Tom Cruise, from I think Glenn Powell told the story, called him and said, like, take this part, going to be worth it. And I think he's taking a page out of Tom Cruise's book on just doing movies that people want to see. Like he's getting back to I know that sounds simple, but he's getting back to like the nineties and early two thousands type of movie that I think people have been longing for and no one else stepped up to do
anyone but you was Sidney Sweeney. He gave us a rom com Twisters remake. He's giving us a fun, breezy or spinny action movie that people wanted to go to the movies and escape to see.
Just want to give a shout out to Daisy Edgar Jones, who is his co star, the leading lady in Twisters, and she's fantastic. The chemistry between them is great, you believe it. Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt were the originals in the nineteen ninety six version of Twisters, and their chemistry was great. They really played out. And by the way, more a tyranny coming in hot with a cameo as uh Daisy's mom.
I love she's so good. Shews a little depth to it ravatas she's an actor.
She's Aunt May. So if you saw the original, there's the Aunt May, Helen Hunt's aunt. They did a great job of casting Glenn Palell. They let him cook with that big smile and you know the Texas sayings. And Daisy played her role as the brilliant scientists.
Very is set in Oklahoma. Of course it is Okay an tornado ally so and.
I have to we'll talk about this of why this film means so much to me. This really this was an emotional movie to me.
I want to give props again, like going back to the domestic box office take, eighty point five million dollars, vastly exceeding expectations, thirty million dollars more than analysts expected. And I got to say. We listen to the podcast The Town with Matt Bellanie, which I love when he has people on, they say this a lot. I like that they own it. Analysts really struggle, people who've known this industry forever struggle still to know what's going to hit.
I didn't expect Twisters to be this big. I'm glad it is. I want to know why it went even bigger than expected.
The box office reminds me a little bit of political polls and also TV ratings. There are seasons of The Bachelor that blew up Ali Fedotowski, Sean Lowe. Uh. There are seasons that kind of came out of the blue and we didn't think we had the goods. We wrapped production and thought, oh man, I hope we can save this, and post production, I hope we can kind of put
this thing together. And those turned out to be some of our biggest stars in our biggest years, and sometime you're a scratching your head of like what And then there were and then there were seasons where we thought we had it all and then it just went flat.
Well, now that you have, now that you can look back, do you think there was a common thread between those seasons where it got way bigger than you expected it to be? What was that hit factor?
For some reason or another, people resonated with the star people. That's why I say, Glenn Power, all kudos to you, because this was a great remake, but it was Bill Paxton's show. Glenn Powell clearly has that draw and so does Daisy clearly as the leading lady. We're drawn to him. Why did people get drawn to Ali, Sean Lowe, Ben Higgins? They did? They? I don't know if they speak to the Middle America, maybe Americana.
Maybe I'm sensing that from that group they maybe we're get.
Thirsty for this right now in the world. We just need to escape. And you you mentioned something to me of someone said to the director, why didn't you you know?
Oh there was there was a headline and I think the Hollywood reporter that was why which I love that they had to ask him this. It shows you where things are why Twisters doesn't address climate change, and the director said, movies don't always need to push a message, right, And I do think we need to get back to that. We got so far away from it. I'm I am not saying movies should never have a message. Movies can be some of the most powerful message makers out there,
but it shouldn't be a forced message. It shouldn't be we have do have because I know what's been happening. Money people in studios have been saying, well, the movie needs They think people want something that says something. The movie needs to say something, and then it comes across inauthentic. Sometimes movies are just fun escapes, and then some movies have a meaning and are the most powerful, you know, culture shaping forces of our time. But I don't know the Twisters needs to be you.
Know, everything doesn't have to mean everything all the time. We can just escape to the movies. That's what we used to do.
But that's interesting because I do think that you know, people are now dubbing Glenn Powell a bonafid movie star and a big concern people have in Hollywood right now is that there are no more movie stars that new movie stars haven't been made in recent years. And by that they mean people who on their own with their name are a draw at the box office. The Tom Cruise is, the Denzel Washington's, the Will Smith's, the Tom Hanks a box office draw.
And I will say, we're also getting over the hangover of last year's strike and for the first time, we're now catching up. And if you go to see Twisters, which I really highly recommend you do, you're gonna see some great previews to movies that you have not heard of. Then they're not Marvel movies, they're not superhero movies. These are bona fide good. They look like really good movies
that I hadn't heard were in the pipeline. And now like normal, we're getting introduced to five six new movies coming up, and I'm actually excited about the box office. We're finally catching back up.
This is what I wanted to bring up about the box office. Twisters eighty point five million. Oppenheimer brought an eighty point five million last summer, so same debut as Oppenheimer, which wound up to be one of the biggest movies of recent years, multiple Academy Award nominations.
Do you remember what Barbie, dude, I'll look it up.
But putting Twisters matching Oppenheimer, that's wild. Glenn Poul's got to be feeling good. He just matched Christ.
So here's the early early projection. Could Twisters be the Oscars Darling of the year. Never know? And that's what's funny is this show. This movie will do hundreds of millions of dollars when it's all said and done, but it will not get any Oscar noms. Maybe for special effects it could do that.
Barbie kicked both there, but Barbie had a one hundred and fifty five million dollar opening weekend.
Lest Twisters has no help in the box office right now.
There's nothing helping it, right Barbie and Barbie and Oppenheimer both had Barbenheimer. We'll see if Glicked the Gladiator Wicked weekend this fall that everybody's hoping for.
By the way, I saw the Wicked preview. Oh it's good. I'm all I love Wicked. It's well, it's one of my favorite musicals. It's one of the best musicals of all time. Part of that is I am a Homer and I love Kristin chenow with because I went to college with her.
But I think Wicked special because like You and Taylor is no love. You and Taylor love musicals together.
The imagination and the movie looks so creative and it's so good, a little bit different in a good way. So I'm excited about it.
I don't know that it needs I'm still questioning it being in two parts. I don't understand that it's a one sitting viewing in Broadway theaters. Why is the movie two movies?
Gladiator is going to be so good with Denzel I'm very excited about it.
I hope so, but so there's a lot of pressure on that.
My one bone to pick with Twisters whoa and spoiler alert, our heroes live. If you saw the original, you know.
That it wouldn't be a light crazy movie. If they did it, then it would be an Academy Award nominated.
At the end of the original Twisters in the mid nineties, there is chemistry, crazy chemistry. It's the moonlighting effect, right the old Bruce Willis Sivil Shepherd show of You want them together, but they're never going to get together. You want them together, but they're never going to get together. Of course they do get together. Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt share this wonderful kis after the huge tornado blows over them and they survive and the rest is movie magic.
And you know, we pull out to the Big Field and.
So and that movie gave us everything we wanted. Action, comedy, love.
This New Incarnation Twisters remake spoiler alert, there is no kiss at the end. They shot it. They shot a kiss scene where Glenn Powell and Daisy, the two main characters, kiss, but they decided not And I went deep dive on this today. You know who we have to blame? Spielberg. I heard this was a Spielberg note. Wow, and I have no scientific evidence, but this apparently was a note in people No.
Wait, I just pulled it up. Glenn Powells said it was a Spielberg note. Glen he said it was a good note. I don't know if I agree.
Glenn Spielberg says it was too cliche in my opinion.
But isn't the point of this movie to give us the cliches?
Thank you, Elsie. That's exactly what I was going to say. Is the whole point of this movie at the end is to be one big cliche. The boy gets the girl. They survived, the girl gets the boy, she survives. It's it's pretty woman, she saves them right back, et cetera. There needed to be that kiss and at the end, what's funny, and I'll be interested for you to see it. I missed it. There was something missing emotionally. I really
literally missed the kiss. I was waiting for it because I also knew the original so well that they had this. Really if you saw it, Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt tied themselves to this deep pipe well and they survived, and then the water sprang on them, and the crew comes in and they're jumping because Dorothy was flying, and they got everything they needed from the tornado, and they kissed. I was waiting for that moment, and and you had great chemistry with the two leads, but we didn't get it,
And I disagree. That's the one miss I think that's the one time in his career Spielberg has missed interesting.
The director said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, I feel like audiences are in a different place now in terms of wanting a kiss or not wanting a kiss. He said that they tried the scene with the kiss, and the test audience has found it quote very polarizing. This no kiss shot was the other option that I had filmed on that day, and I have to say I like it better. I think it's a better ending. I think that people who want to kiss within it,
they can probably assume these guys will kiss someday. Well, we want to see it, and maybe we give them privacy for that. We don't need to give them privacy. They're characters in a scripted movie. In a way, this ending is a means to make sure that we really wrap things up with it in a celebratory good way. I disagree. What's more celebratory than a kiss.
So here's what's weird.
So if we would, okay, But he just said they can assume they kiss. The entire point of film it is is that it is a visual medium that shows us the story. Think about how simple that is. It's not radio, it's not it's visual. We want to see the kiss.
First of all, this will be released because this was a huge gaff, a massive miss. There's a scene at the end shout out to the Oklahoma City Airport. It was shot in the airport there and you know, you'll see how it plays out. I don't want to ruin too much because it's a very sweet scene. It is. By the way, this is what the hypocrisy is on this. The whole ending is so cliche. You see it coming a mile away the last two minutes. You anybody could write this scene and it is so cliche. The boy
chasing the girl and in the interview the airport. How cliche is that the chase down in the airport.
Well, now you're really revealing the ending.
But here's the thing there is the chase does matter.
The ending does so cliche, and it's beautiful.
It's when Harry met Sally. It's every rom com we've ever loved. Give me the frickin' ending.
Okay, So Daisy Edgar Jones said in this interview, we thought that getting rid of the kiss made it or stopped it from being too cliche. Like maybe they felt like the kiss just made it way too cheesy given all those other factors.
You just said, this cliche was thelm and Louise. We drove off the cliff. It couldn't be more cliche. Trum.
I'm on your side. Listen if you and I Love We met, you know, over a reality show about love. I Love Love on TV and I've seen it. I had heard about this even without having seen it, because I'm on Twitter a lot or X and people. It was kind of trending over the weekend that people were like,
bring back kisses in movies. So I'm interested in if now that once the movie's out a few weeks, if the director or if Glenn and Daisy changed their tune on whether they think the kiss should have stayed in once they hear more audience response, because and that is something that's gone away, like kissing. Like I don't know, we kind of had this walk back of like you know, needing. It's like a lot of the times when things need
to be corrected at first, we overcorrect. And I think a few years ago there as part of many movements, it was like actors shouldn't have to have sex on screen and movies and bringing intimacy coordinators on set, and that's a good thing. An intimacy coordinator should be on set to help people feel comfortable and film and all that. But I do think people love to see love stories and they like to escape into great makeout scenes and even sex scenes and movies.
What books are most women reading?
Romance novel true crime thrillers, true.
Romance novels, heavy sex scenes. You know, I know, we've gotten rid of sex scenes, We've gotten rid of nudity, now we've gotten rid of the kiss. I in my opinion and my experience of being on a show all about the kiss, lean into it. You can't be cliche enough when it comes to love.
Also, Glenn, I got to tell you a lot of your audience wants to see you kiss. That's that's part of what they're there for.
My first it was so they stopped the cliche just a bit. But even with that said, twisters, I'm going to give it a nine point eight out of ten because they missed the kiss, that took that doctum two tense. Wow, the dismount. They just missed the dismount. It's the Olympics coming out and sports.
Okay, let me go back to the F five comment from you. Yes, please share how you know what the different levels of tornadoes are and then give us your what you will reveal to be expert take on this movie.
This is why this movie was bizarrely emotional for me and Taylor. Even our daughter was with me, and so she looked over, She's like, are you okay? And I was like really kind of intently staring at the screen. At the end, it was really emotional because the original was shot back in the mid nineties. That's and it was shot in Oklahoma when I was a sportscaster and
news journalist in Oklahoma. And so the original movie actually involved like our meteorologist Gary England, who helped create Doppler radar back in the day. He was like the guy when there was tornadoes and he had a bit part in the movie. A lot of the meteorologists around Oklahoma City did have you know, they were in the background when the tornadoes are coming and you're watching the news footage.
That was real and those people are the people we worked with on the day to day in the mid nineties, and it was this was a big deal in the middle of Oklahoma in the mid nineties. Bill Paxton was in town and they did a movie premiere in Oklahoma City. For us, it was a big deal.
So you were working where then.
I was at kW TV, the CBS affiliate Channel nine in Oklahoma City.
And did they film in Oklahoma City.
They should part all over Oklahoma.
Wow.
Parts of it were on a set, but parts of it were in Oklahoma, and I don't know, I have to look it up to see where they shot.
The premiere was in Oklahoma City.
One of them.
Well you know how they move, that's awesome.
Yeah, so they you know, like our our meteorologist Gary was like on the red carpet, will you know. We just thought it was the biggest thing.
In the world, you know, you know where you would go from, you.
Know, Hollywood coming to Oklahoma City. It was a big deal. It was my first taste of that world. But the other thing is this was ninety six, so I had been working for three years. My last big one of my last big news stories that I covered because I would cross over and do news from time to time, was the biggest tornado outbreak in the history of Oklahoma, which is basically what this movie is about. Was the biggest tornado outbreak and then the biggest tornado dropping That
happened in May of ninety nine. The day was crazy. There had been tornadoes all day. I was in the sports office, so our storm trackers, stormchasers were all over the state because there had been fifty sixty tornadoes, all these storms, and so everybody was spread out late afternoon early evening. The biggest tornado, one of the biggest, I don't want to misquote myself, but I think it was one of the biggest ever in the history of Oklahoma.
Dropped in the middle of Oklahoma City in the Midwest City Dell City area, went kind of across Tinker Air Force Base, and I think more across the Air Force base into Midwest City del City, because that's where I caught up with it. So our news director went running through the office screaming, who can go? We need a photographer and a reporter. They stuck their head in the sports office. My boss was like zero chance Harrison Europe. And so my sports photographer and I get in the
car and start chasing this tornado. And back then we didn't have all the technology. We had a CBE radio. There was a meteorologist on air that was Gary England. Then there was this other guy, I forget his name, Brady Bruce. Brady Bruce was he was also meteorologist, but his job with essentially like matchbox cars. Toy cars would map where you are and he would watch the tornado to hopefully keep you out of harm's way.
It sounds like Game of Thrones level safety and strategizing in wartime.
One thing you can usually count on with tornadoes. They move in a northeasterly direction, so you get on the southwest side of them and follow them.
Was this the first time you'd covered a toy?
I had been out four, but not to this extent.
Wow. So you were literally thrown into storms.
And I have video. I'll put this up on my social media. I have video of I got to the Midwest City, Dell City area, right after the tornado ripped through, and it was it really is like the movie. This is where I will give kudos to Twisters. The effects are real looking and the after effects how the towns look when a tornado has ripped through is very very real. I mean it's you'll see when I put up this social media video on my Instagram. It looks like it's
the movie. Cars are strewn, trees are just ripped clean. Where where houses were there's just a slab. Stuff is just thrown everywhere. It's it's the craziest thing you've ever walked in. And right after a tornado it gets kind of soupy green. It gets kind of still, and it's eerie because all you really hear is the hiss of gas.
Typically it's not raining, and there might be a little wind, but it's not too dramatic, and it's just eerie because all you're hearing is just gas leaks and people crying out, and it's a very eerie feeling. One thing that Twisters does dramatically a lot of people get sucked up in these tornadoes in the movie. In the movie, so there are several deaths in the movie for dramatic effect. Ironically, not a lot of people die because we know when you're living in a tornado alley where to go and what
to do. Get in your if you have a basement, or you get in your bathtub for the F one through kind of F three tornadoes. But the interesting thing about the tornado I chase the F five. It was so big. It was the first time I heard kind of fear in our meteorologist Gary England's voice, and he was said, if you cannot get underground, you will die. Get underground or you will die. So if you can't get underground, and he never says this because you should
never try to outrun a tornado. He was telling people, get in your car, get out of there. You have no hope of just being in your bathtub and being in a closet because this will one hundred percent destroy your house. And he's right, and this you'll see in my reporting. Nobody died in that F five tornado that went through. There were a lot of injuries because there's a lot of debris and cuts and it's it's wild. So this movie has a uh.
So, what was making you emotional in the theater just took it.
Took me back to my breaking news days. It took me back to that young man that was so like wide eyed and scared and covering it to his first big I mean, this was huge, a huge tornado, and so you know, I remember walking through the streets. We would, you know, helping people get out of their storm shelters because people were in their storm shelters and a washing machine or whatever was on top of it and there
were gas leaks, so they were smelling gas. It was pitch black in their storm shelter and they couldn't get out. So we were like clearing debris and we would when people were injured, we'd put them on a piece of plywood, carry them to the street until you know, emergency vehicles could get in. So it was a lot of triage, a lot of just and for you know, a young and it was such a wild, emotional day and it kind of took me back to that. It was really Uh,
they did a really good job. It's very realistic, very good. Again, too many people are getting sucked up all the time. But with that said, it was And there is a scene in there. You know she's holding you know, it's kind of like a gladiator when he you know, grabs the dirt before war. You know, she's like holding a dandelion and she can read the weather by the dandelion being blown around. A little whimsical and fantastically.
This in Gary, England could have done that.
Gary England could have done it. But shout out to all the meteorologists in Tornado Alley. It's funny. We get so mad because they put the map up and they cover up programming, but when you need them, you're happy they're there.
Oh well, well, that's the number one thing always that people watch on local news, right is the weather forever. Yeah, it's it's interesting because I grew up in Chicago, and I've seen that green sky before, and we have tornado season, not on the level of Oklahoma, but like when we first moved to Texas or even in I guess in California, I knew there weren't really tornadoes, But when we first moved to Texas, I'm like, why doesn't anybody have a
basement here? Like you guys get tornadoes right because and I guess we don't really get them in Austin, but in Chicago, everybody as a basement, and we were.
A city you do, I guess because of the soil and whatever going on in Texas and Dallas, you can't really have basements. I'm sure you could now, but back in the day they just didn't build them.
And one of the you know, wherever you grew up, you know that type of disaster.
And you know where to go. I mean, as kids growing up in Dallas, we spent so many days in the spring hunkered down in the hallway or in the gym, you know, with your head between your legs and hunkered down no because tornadoes were you know, the sirens were going. And this one of the other big emotional scenes at the end. It was really funny because again Taylor, our daughter, caught me. There's a scene in al Reno, Oklahoma, big scene at the end and where the big tornado comes through.
I spent a lot of time in a Reno. It's just outside Oklahoma City, I want to say, like forty five minute drive. And one of my fraternity brothers we used to go out there and play golf at al Reno Country Club, and so it just it took me back. It really took me back to my Oklahoma days. It's it's a life and a world that I was very proud of, and I, you know, really draw back to a lot of people, my mentors. You knows who I found in Oklahoma City is where I went to college,
and so it was just cool. I like, I like when places like that are put on the map.
Well, we are going to go see Twisters again?
Yes?
I love that just a few days later you will are willing to go see it with me again. I love when a movie as well at the box office.
I can remember the last time I wanted to see a movie twice.
That's a big rave review that you want to see it twice in the theater.
I'm double dipping on Twisters, and I'll put up that video because it's really funny, and don't make fun of my Oklahoma accent by the way, because it is heavy. So Number one, congratulations to everybody involved with the movie Twisters, huge success of the box office. It's good to see movies back, and we will see you at the cinema. No, we will talk to you again next time because we have a lot more to talk about. Thanks for listening.
Follow us on Instagram at the most dramatic pod ever and make sure to write us a review and leave us five stars. I'll talk to you next time.