'It wasn't a given': How the film industry's growth allowed Oklahoma to land 'Twisters'

Oklahoma City's Film Incentive Program is off to a whirlwind start, thanks to the summer event movie "Twisters."

After spending months in Oklahoma making the movie last year, "Twisters" stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell and Anthony Ramos took the Sooner State by storm again at a special invitation-only screening and red-carpet event Monday night at downtown OKC's Harkins Bricktown 16.

"I'm thrilled, but it's a community victory, really," said Jill Simpson, executive director of the Oklahoma City Film & Creative Industries Office, which worked with the Oklahoma Film + Music Office to help Universal Pictures organize the OKC premiere.

"The studio was wonderful to work with, the team was top-notch, and it was our first rebate applicant out of the gate for our brand-new program. So, this was a huge win for Oklahoma City."

Opening in theaters nationwide Friday, July 19, "Twisters" is the long-awaited follow-up to the blockbuster "Twister," which filmed across Oklahoma in 1995.

But Simpson said the standalone sequel wasn't guaranteed to follow the path of the original Oscar-nominated hit by shooting in the Sooner State.

"It wasn't a given that they would come to Oklahoma. ... To a lot of people, it seemed like a foregone conclusion, but the studio was also looking at Georgia heavily," she said.

"It's a testament to ... the years of growth and the state support for our industry that allowed us to be in a position to land this movie."

How did Oklahoma land the 'Twisters' movie?

Before recent powerhouse productions like Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" and the inaugural season of "Tulsa King" came to the Sooner State, "Twister" was one of the biggest projects to ever film in Oklahoma.

The blockbuster filmed across the state, including in Guthrie, Maysville, Norman, Fairfax and Wakita.

When it stormed into theaters in 1996, "Twister" was a commercial smash. It became the second-highest grossing film of the year, earning more than $494 million at the global box office, making it the most commercially successful made-in-Oklahoma movie to be released to date.

"It is both historically and culturally fitting that 'Twisters' shot in and around OKC, but it also continues to validate our rise as a film hub. The original film's production ultimately felt like a one-off project for our state. By the time this second one arrived, it was part of an industry," Mayor David Holt said in a statement to The Oklahoman ahead of the movie's OKC premiere.

"But I do think there is something special for our community about this series of films, and so I'm uniquely grateful that 'Twisters' ended up here."

Although he hails from Arkansas, Simpson credited "Twisters" director Lee Isaac Chung for championing Oklahoma as the right place to make "Twisters." Not only did the filmmaker grow up on a farm just outside of Westville, Oklahoma, but he also previously filmed his Academy Award-winning semi-autobiographical immigrant drama "Minari" in the Tulsa area in 2019.

"I love Isaac, and I really look forward to seeing his updated version ... because it's a totally different style of filmmaking for him," she said.

A new, contemporary chapter the original hit, "Twisters" follows rising movie stars Edgar-Jones, Powell and Ramos as storm chasers with varied backgrounds and goals who take on the tornadoes that often tear across Oklahoma.

Using the state film incentive that went into effect in 2021 and with an estimated budget of $200 million, principal photography on "Twisters" got underway May 8, 2023, in Oklahoma City. Downtown OKC's Prairie Surf Studios served as not only the production's hub but also one of its filming locations.

"'Tulsa King' was basically our staff learning how to do it. ... We were learning about the building, we were learning what made productions happy, we were learning what frustrated them," said Matt Payne, co-founder and CEO of Prairie Surf Studios.

"By the time we got to 'Twisters,' we'd really refined our product. So, we were able to be really good partners to them, both in terms of providing them space that really worked very effectively, but also ... in terms of their ability to build a relationship with the city, which was really important."

How much economic impact did 'Twisters' have on OKC?

In July 2023, "Twisters" and the homegrown independent crime drama "Defiant Vanity" became the first projects approved for the Oklahoma City Film Incentive Program. A new program approved by the OKC Council in spring 2022, the incentive provides filmmakers on certain projects rebates between 5% and 10% of qualified expenses like set building, catering, editing and more.

The OKC Council approved "Twisters" for $1 million in tax rebates, as it was expected to spend $42.6 million in Oklahoma City. At the time, the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber estimated a "tremendous" economic output of $258 million from the project.

"The direct dollars that were spent here, when we ran those through our economic modeler, it was a couple of hundred million dollars of impact in the city over four or five months. And that's great business, no matter what the industry is, especially one like film that we're really trying to grow," Simpson said.

Nearly 2,300 metro-area residents were to be hired for the big-budget project, representing more than 45,500 working days for Oklahoma City-area residents. Cast and crew lodging used 10 OKC hotels, and the studio contracted with 500 local vendors.

Although OKC's rebate program requires production companies to spend at least 50% of filming days within the capital city's limits to be eligible for its incentive, that didn't stop "Twisters" from engaging with multiple communities statewide, including El Reno, Chickasha, Midwest City, Spencer, Kingfisher, Calumet, Hinton, Fairview, Okarche, Kremlin, Burbank and Pawhuska.

Oklahoma Film + Music Office Director Jeanette Stanton told The Oklahoman that final numbers have not yet come in on the statewide economic impact of the making of "Twisters."

But filming on the follow-up came within 20 miles of Wakita, where the Twister Movie Museum continues to preserve and display memorabilia from the first movie and has become a gathering place for storm chasers, cinephiles and weather enthusiasts from all over the world almost 30 years after the original "Twister's" release.

“One of the most exciting benefits of having 'Twisters' in Oklahoma is film tourism, which will bring sales tax revenue to the state long after the production has wrapped,” Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell said in a statement. “The original film generated about $52 million in economic impact. We look forward to the spotlight 'Twisters' will shine on Oklahoma as both a film tourism destination and center for weather-related studies.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: With the OKC premiere of 'Twisters,' what's the film's economic impact?