'Twisters' tears through Oklahoma on the big screen. Moviegoers in the state are buying up tickets

MOORE, Okla. (AP) — Grace Evans lived through one of the most powerful and deadly twisters in Oklahoma history: a roaring top-of-the-scale terror in 2013 that plowed through homes, tore through a school and killed 24 people in the small suburb of Moore.

A hospital and bowling alley were also destroyed. But not the movie theater next door — where almost a decade later, Evans and her teenage daughter this week felt no pause buying two tickets to a showing of the blockbuster “Twisters.”

“I was looking for that element of excitement and I guess drama and danger,” Evans said.

Her daughter also walked out a fan. “It was very realistic. I was definitely frightened,” said Charis Evans, 15.

The smash success of “Twisters” has whipped up moviegoers in Oklahoma who are embracing the summer hit, including in towns scarred by deadly real-life tornadoes. Even long before it hit theaters, Oklahoma officials had rolled out the red carpet for makers of the film, authorizing what is likely to wind up being millions of dollars in incentives to film in the state.

In its opening weekend, the action-packed film starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell generated $80.5 million from more than 4,150 theaters in North America. Some of the largest audiences have been in the tornado-prone Midwest.

The top-performing theater in the country on opening weekend was the Regal Warren in Moore, which screened the film in 10 of its 17 auditoriums on opening weekend from 9 a.m. to midnight. John Stephens, the theater's general manager, said many moviegoers mentioned wanting to see the film in a theater that survived a massive tornado.

“The people who live in Tornado Alley have a certain defiance towards mother nature,” he said, “almost like a passion to fight storms, which was depicted by the characters in ‘Twisters.’"

Lee Isaac Chung, who directed the film, considered placing the movie in Oklahoma to be critically important.

“I told everyone this is something that we have to do. We can’t just have blue screens,” Chung told the AP earlier this year. “We’ve got to be out there on the roads with our pickup trucks and in the green environments where this story actually takes place.”

The film was shot at locations across Oklahoma, with the studio taking advantage of a rebate incentive in which the state directly reimburses production companies for up to 30% of qualifying expenditures, including labor.

State officials said the exact amount of money Oklahoma spent on “Twisters” is still being calculated. But the film is exactly the kind of blockbuster Sooner State policymakers envisioned when they increased the amount available for the program in 2021 from $8 million annually to $30 million, said Jeanette Stanton, director of Oklahoma's Film and Music Office.

Among the major films and television series that took advantage of Oklahoma's film incentives in recent years were “Reagan" ($6.1 million), “Killers of the Flower Moon” ($12.4 million), and the television shows “Reservoir Dogs” ($13 million) and “Tulsa King” ($14.1 million).

Stanton said she's not surprised by the success of “Twisters,” particularly in Oklahoma.

“You love seeing your state on the big screen, and I think for locals across the state, when they see that El Reno water tower falling down, they think: ‘I know where that is!’” she said.

“It's almost as if Oklahoma was a character in the film,” she added.

In the northeast Oklahoma community of Barnsdall, where two people were killed and more than 80 homes were destroyed by a tornado in May, Mayor Johnny Kelley said he expects most residents will embrace the film.

“Some will and some won’t. Things affect people differently, you know?” said Kelley, who is a firefighter in nearby Bartlesville. “I really don’t ever go to the movies or watch TV, but I might go see that one."

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Follow Sean Murphy at www.x.com/apseanmurphy