Twisters looks like it’s going to be a massive hit for Universal, with it opening much higher than anyone expected it to.

Twisters is blowing past our box office expectations, with Deadline reporting that the movie has been overperforming in a big way. It’s on track for an opening north of $74 million, with an $80 million debut not out of the question. This is a huge win for Universal, with many questioning the wisdom of making a sequel to a twenty-eight-year-old film with only tenuous connections to the original. Yet, director Lee Isaac Chung made a fun movie and benefits from the star power of Glen Powell, whose ascent as a leading man seems all but guaranteed now, with it giving him his third big hit next to Top Gun: Maverick and Anyone But You. 

It’s also a good showcase for the talented Daisy Edgar Jones, who had a hit of her own with Where the Crawdads Sing, and Anthony Ramos, coming off of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Clearly, Universal knew what they were doing building a movie like this around a solid cast of up-and-comers. 

Despicable Me 4 and Inside Out 2 will likely take second and third place with $21.5 million and $11 million a piece. Longlegs seems set for a fourth-place finish with $10.2 million, with it looking like it is going to fall 54%, which is very solid for a polarizing horror film like this one. It’s printing money for Neon, that’s for sure.

As well as Twisters is doing, the box office is set to be completely annihilated next weekend by the release of Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine, which seems like it will be one of the biggest opening weekends of all time. Will Twisters be able to hang on to a good chunk of the box office in the face of the big-time competition from Marvel? We’ll see, but this is still a great start for Twisters, which seems likely to get a sequel at this point.