Moo saw that coming?
It’s been the question on everyone’s lips since it was announced that Twister, the 1996 thriller following two storm chasers, was getting a sequel: will there be a flying cow?
The image of the udderly helpless farmyard animal being swept up by a tornado was arguably the shot of the cult hit, so it’s no surprise that viewers were keeping a keen eye on the skies throughout the runtime of Twisters.
Well, while it wasn’t director Lee Isaac Chung’s plan to include a nod to that fan-favourite moment, the filmmaker has revealed that there is a flying cow after all (sort of) - much to his surprise.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Chung explained that towards the end of the movie, a piece of debris with a cow plastered on the side gets caught up in the storm, which his VFX team sneaked in without him knowing.
"It’s the hardest thing to spot," explained Chung. "I only spotted it because I noticed some weird marking on a piece of flying debris.
"I said, 'Could you freeze that frame?' I was looking at frame-by-frame shots when we’re doing VFX reviews, and sure enough, there was a cow on that thing."
So, perhaps not quite as iconic as the moment in the original, then - but an easier one for animal rights fans to swallow, at least.
Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com, Chung has spoken about the challenges of "stupidly" filming in tornado season.
He said: "I had this great idea, 'Let's film during tornado season, because I want good skies.' That's what I said.
"And then when we're filming, we were getting shut down... maybe every three days or so, something would shut us down.
"And we'd be filming half days as a result of storms just coming through, destroying our sets sometimes. So that was a huge challenge."
It’s a risk that has seemingly paid off, though, as Twisters has opened to impressive box office numbers and was praised for its "popcorn pleasures and star power" in RadioTimes.com’s review.
Twisters is now showing in cinemas.
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George White is a Sub-Editor for Radio Times. He was previously a reporter for the Derby Telegraph and was the editor of LeftLion magazine. As well as receiving an MA in Magazine Journalism, he completed a BA in Politics and International Relations.
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