New Delhi: The first movie he saw in a theatre as a child was Steven Spielberg's E.T. and now to work on Twisters, which has the master filmmaker on board as one of the producers, is a surreal feeling, says director Lee Isaac Chung.
The filmmaker, whose 2021's Minari earned critical acclaim as well as best supporting actress Oscar for Youn Yuh-jung, is exploring a new territory with his latest, a sequel to the 1996 disaster film Twister, starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. Both the films have Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment attached as one of the producers.
Chung said the original Jan de Bont-directed Twister, about a couple on the brink of divorce who must come together to survive a tornado, was probably the last movie he saw in a theatre with family before starting college.
"The first movie that I saw in a movie theatre was E.T. I really grew up on those Amblin movies that were coming out during the '80s and the '90s. Like Back to the Future and Twister."
"And now to be able to make an Amblin movie that comes from one of those films that I loved, it's really surreal and wonderful... Essentially, I just went with the vibe (of those films)," Chung told PTI in a Zoom interview.
Twisters, releasing on July 18 in India, features Glen Powell as Tyler Owens, a storm-chasing YouTube influencer, Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kate Cooper, a meteorologist haunted by past trauma, and Anthony Ramos as her friend Javi.
The film is also produced by Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, and The Kennedy/Marshall Company. Warner Bros are also internationally distributing the movie.
The Korean-American filmmaker said he studied some of the movies that he grew up with to understand the nuances essential to a summer blockbuster.
"There is a blend of fear, fun, humour and thrill within those movies that I remember and I kept thinking about how to do that in this one. How do I have moments of fear but then suddenly shift to humour and things like that. It was the feeling (of those films) that I was after," he said.
Chung, 45, was born in Denver, Colorado and moved to Lincoln, Arkansas when his family bought a farm there. He shot Minari, a family drama based on the immigrant experience of his Korean parents in the US, near those places.
And that experience helped him on Twisters though the two projects couldn't have been more different.
"All of the work I did on Minari was done in Oklahoma on the ground in actual farm locations and I wanted to bring this ('Twisters') production out of the studios and out of the stages and into those fields of Oklahoma. I felt like I was able to do this based on something that I already learned from 'Minari', which is that the landscape is special and speaks for itself. This place is cinematic." It is not easy to make a sequel to a film that has been well loved and Chung said while he recognised the challenge, it also gave him a chance to express his love for the original by making a film that "speaks to our world today".
"Hopefully, we have done that with this one... I am excited that there is already so much interest in this one. I've been floored by just how many fans are cheering for us and our actors who they already love. I hope we do well and really meet that excitement." Chung said he is surprised that "it took so long" for viewers to discover Powell, Edgar-Jones and Ramos.
In the last year, Powell has emerged as one of the rising stars in Hollywood thanks to the back-to-back success of Anyone But You and Hit Man. It is the first big project for Edgar-Jones who became famous for her role in Sally Rooney's series adaptation of Normal People. Ramos too has a growing career, having starred in A Star Is Born and In the Heights.
"Anytime you point your camera at them, it's instantly cinematic. They are incredible performers and there is so much truth behind what they do. There is this energy and charisma to them.
"I'm very excited to have them in a big-scale action movie... I really believe that they are stars. They deserve to be stars and we are fortunate to be able to watch them in their work." As someone who is a movie buff, Chung said his dream is to make "one of every type of film".
"I am very curious and I love the movie theatre so I would also love to make movies that are meant for the movie theatre. That's a very big goal that I am chasing... To give theatrical experience to people."