Twisters was surprisingly good for a late reboot of a divisive disaster flick released in 1996. Many would even argue it was one of summer 2024’s most effective blockbusters. However, a big point of contention was and still is that damn kiss-less ending.
Spoilers ahead: Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell’s characters are clearly flirty through the entire movie and especially towards the end. After the dust has settled and some back-and-forth, Kate (Edgar-Jones) decides to stay with Tyler (Powell) and continue to storm-chase more tornadoes. The status of their relationship is left ambiguous, but you just know they have the hots for each other, and the omission of a traditional, super romantic kiss was weird (or at least that’s what most people said).
During a Q&A with director Lee Isaac Chung, it was revealed that no, Amblin’s Steven Spielberg wasn’t the person responsible for cutting out the kiss (which was shot) despite all those rumours that were circulating for months. Actually, it was the test audiences’ fault, which tells everyone once again that filmmakers and studios just shouldn’t trust test screenings so much. You can watch the clip here.
For those who want the quick, written-down version, here’s the full quote:
“That was not true. We shot it. Spielberg wanted the kiss, too. He was like, ‘I hope this works!’ We tested the film, and we were just finding that it was super polarizing… Normally, I want to say don’t be a coward… but this was a tough one. There was a giant team involved, the studios, everybody, and there were quite a lot of people who were doubtful about whether there should be a kiss in this movie… But it was not Spielberg. He’s a romantic like I am.”
His answer was clean and straight, but am I the only one scratching their head at how “quite a lot of people” seemingly weren’t into having a kiss in a quite romantic movie? What’s going on? It’s true that Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters have been largely sex-less as of late, but we might be cooked if such a simple act of love is also handled with gloves. Whether you think Twisters needed a kiss to wrap everything up is beside the point, if you think about the larger questions and implications of Chung’s comments.
Mind you, I feel like the movie’s more ambiguous ending for the two characters works well, but I see the point of the pro-kiss crowd and wouldn’t have minded a much more traditional Hollywood ending for a movie that’s very traditional otherwise.