Why do we love 'Twisters'? Call it the Maverick effect

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Talk about a whirlwind summer.

After a lackluster April and May, the box office came roaring back to life with monster hits like "Inside Out 2" and "Deadpool & Wolverine." While those two installments did even better than expected — "Inside Out 2" is now the top-grossing animated film of all time, and "Deadpool & Wolverine" just raked in a cool billion — maybe the biggest surprise of the season is "Twisters."

No superheroes or Jedi warriors; just regular Americans showing up and doing their duty.

Much like one of the titular tornados Glen Powell and crew chase down, the disaster flick's success seemed to come out of nowhere.

In retrospect, it makes sense that audiences would flock to this highly belated sequel to 1996's "Twister." A non-woke, thrilling blockbuster for all ages, with likeable movie stars portraying likeable characters; big, edge-of-your-seat action sequences; and a story with heart? Take our money.

But there’s another reason for all the love: a little factor I like to call the Maverick effect.

Allow me to explain. Two summers ago, ticket sales soared into the stratosphere with the release of another sequel decades in the making: "Top Gun: Maverick."

While "Maverick" has all the virtues I just extolled in "Twisters," there's a little something else both movies share, besides the rising star power of Glen Powell: American pride.

It's a bit more understated than the over-the-top patriotism of '80s classics like "Rambo" or "Rocky IV," and that's what's so appealing about it.

That is to say, both films depict real people doing real things and turn it into epic cinema. Whether they're flying jets at Mach 9 speeds or chasing storms in the untraveled farmlands of Oklahoma, these people are ultimately just doing their jobs.

Where they do those jobs also matters: "Maverick" at the North Island Naval Air Station, San Diego, where brave men and women serve this country over seas and skies; and "Twisters" in the fictional Midwestern everytown of Wakita, Oklahoma. Both settings respectfully evoke the kind of hardworking American communities not often seen on the big screen.

No superheroes or Jedi warriors; just regular Americans showing up and doing their duty. You might say Tom Cruise takes a similar workmanlike approach to his job as a movie star, even if does involve hanging off of the side of a plane or climbing the world's tallest building. And it's clearly rubbed off on his protégé, Powell. Like Cruise before him, the younger star is open about his desire to entertain the "vast parts of America that have been underserved in terms of movies that they want to see.”

Clearly, if you serve them, they will come. Hollywood isn’t known for learning the right lessons from its successes (or its failures), but here’s hoping that the powers that be catch on to the Maverick effect and its endless potential for driving American audiences back to the cinemas.

‘Twisters’ Feels Like An Old Fashioned Blockbuster

The minds behind 'Twisters' have successfully reverse-engineered the chemistry of the original film and even improved it in places.

‘Twisters’: Summer Blockbuster Succeeds Because It Leaves Sex and Politics Behind

Hyperpoliticization doesn't sell like it used to. Cowboy hats, community service, and storm-chasing might be the way forward.

'Top Gun: Maverick' actor Glen Powell moves far away from Hollywood so he doesn't have to 'live in the Matrix all the time'

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Actor Glen Powell — who gained notoriety for his role as a talented, cocky pilot in "Top Gun: Maverick" and then fast-rising stardom opposite Sydney Sweeney in "Anyone but You" — is moving out of Hollywood after 15 years.

In fact, according to the Hollywood Reporter, Powell is already gone — to Texas. Specifically, Austin. There he will be closer to family and complete his college degree, the outlet said.

'He’s like, ‘Hollywood is the Matrix, man. You plug in and it’s all fake world.' He’s like, ‘Then I go to Austin, and I unplug. It’s all real. Those are my friends, that’s my family, my actions matter there.''

“It’s like I’ve earned the ability to go back to my family," Powell noted to the Reporter.

As with other actors in recent years, Powell has found Hollywood's appeal wanting and, on a deeper level, he also was having difficulty determining what was real and who was real in his life, the magazine said.

So, according to the Reporter, Powell took the advice of superstar actor Matthew McConaughey.

Photo by Rick Kern/Getty Images

“He’s like, ‘Hollywood is the Matrix, man. You plug in and it’s all fake world,’” Powell recalled to the outlet. “He’s like, ‘Then I go to Austin, and I unplug. It’s all real. Those are my friends, that’s my family, my actions matter there.’ And he’s right. If you’re here, you live in the Matrix all the time, there’s no separation of those worlds. And for me, especially as my parents get older and my niece and nephew are growing up, I want a separation of those worlds.”

The Reporter said Powell bought a house 30 minutes from his parents, adding that "some combination" of his mom and dad and his two sisters "visit every project that Powell’s on, no matter where in the world he is." The outlet added that they "also keep him out of his head, and they make everything more fun."

Powell's mother Cyndy — who once worked in the Reagan administration and has been an extra in nearly every movie her son has been in — told the Reporter, “I know we’re probably in his way sometimes, but you wouldn’t know it because he makes everyone feel loved and taken care of."

Tossing Tinseltown

As Blaze News readers no doubt know by now, a number of well-known thespians have ditched their Hollywood digs in recent years:

  • Earlier this month, it was revealed that actor Adrian Grenier said he departed Hollywood for a life in his own farming community in Texas after years of a "hedonistic" lifestyle.
  • Also in May, stuntman and "Jackass" star Steve-O said he's leaving Hollywood in favor of Tennessee, where there's more land, lower taxes — and he can have "full-blown gun parties."
  • "Rocky" icon Sylvester Stallone earlier this year announced he and his family were moving out of California, where they'd lived for decades, to Florida.
  • Last year actor Scott Baio also ditched California for Florida after 45 years. He stated the reasons bluntly: "Between the homeless defecating on the sidewalk, doing drugs on the sidewalk in the middle of the day, illegal aliens all over the place, laws mean nothing, crime is out of control, graffiti on everything, and all my tax dollars I don't know what they go for."
  • In 2022, Mark Wahlberg said he was moving from California to Nevada to "give my kids a better life" and because it "made a lot more sense for us."
  • Comedian and actor Rob Schneider explained why he moved out of California in 2022: "I really feel like I don’t want the Democratic Party trying to run my life. And there’s not one aspect of your life that they don’t want to interfere with."

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