Alec Baldwin to Star in 'Supercell' Action Pic

Sounds like an ultra-low budget film. There's no guarantee it will ever be released theatricality. Making a film is one thing, but the successful distribution is another. Many end up as PPV. These types of films are sometimes released when industry insiders learn of a larger, similar film in the works. (Maybe Twister-2). When I worked with Twister, there were 2-3 other productions being planned by lower budget film-makers. None of those projects were ever produced.
 
“Samaras died in what apparently was some horrible anomaly where two funnels are combining to make a supercell and then you don’t see the other funnel out of corner of your eye.”

Pretty good for a Hollywood actor who probably spent a couple days prepping for a week long shoot before he's off to the next thing. As a total non-weather person, he had to try to explain to other non-weather people the documentaries he watched for background info in which quickly developing and merging subvortices (funnels) are moving about the MVMC (supercell).

Not that I have to defend this, and I am super biased. I was invited to appear in the film in a bit part. It was a chance to do something fun and different, and I jumped on it. And indeed it was a blast. I was there for a couple days in Montana this May, and was really impressed with everything I saw. The crew seemed passionate and dedicated to their craft. The actors and production staff were outgoing and put in a ton of effort. Even Baldwin was friendly and engaging with the other chasers that were there, asking questions about Samaras, his work with his Turtle probes, and the El Reno storm.

The gust front of an elevated storm hit the location the first day I was there. I thought it was pretty awesome. But the crew, not so much. The outflow wreaked havoc on the props, rigging, and lights.

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Although it's a small budget indie project, the effects are going to be mostly practical while combining real storm footage (ala Hollingshead's shots in Take Shelter I hope). The effects and compositing I got to see looked really good. I hope it translates well to the screen as opposed to other films that drop millions on computer animation only to come off looking cartoony. Even if this turns out more like Tornado! than Twister, there are a bunch of nods to the real world history of storm chasing and meteorology (including Stormtrack), so hopefully the chaser crowd gets a kick a out of it just as Twister has become an endearing classic despite being an over the top (sometimes cheesy) thrill ride. I can't wait to see what they do with the final product.

Me with the director, Jamie Winterstern, and the lead Daniel Diemer:

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Still haven't seen a formal release date, but one industry rag is reporting it to be Nov 2022: Rust Producer Plans To 'Complete The Movie,' Bringing New Film To Cannes Market (slashfilm.com) . The director talked at TESSA this year and it sounds interesting - sounds like he is old school (think Jaws) more than CGI when it comes to effects. As a side note, you can see some of Jamie Wintersterns' storm work on a corporate short he did on his Swipemarket site: Corporate Marketing — Swipemarket (look under "Product Launches"). At another place on their site they make this content look like it came from the Supercell movie: Entertainment — Swipemarket
 
Uhhh - yeah. Hmm. You cannot unsee the popcorn.

From their LinkedIn post:

William (Diemer), son of legendary storm chaser Bill Brody, lost his father to a tornado as a child. Now a good-hearted teenager raised by single mother Quinn (Heche), when a mysterious package with his father’s old journal arrives, he decides to run away to follow in his footsteps with the reluctant aide of his father’s old colleague Roy Cameron (Ulrich), unaware that his father’s legacy is being threatened by greedy businessman Zane Rogers (Alec Baldwin).

Releases in the US in 2023.
 
And why did he think the phone booth was acceptable shelter? And he got a dial tone on the phone - that's how it should work, right?

But the popcorn... C'mon now - who didn't see Bill Paxton dropping some dirt there!
 
Spit-balling, but so far it looks relatively promising. Who knows, maybe this would shed some light into what Storm chasing really is to the masses in a good way. It looks like so far this Movie has SOME form of decent realism. It could bring in fresh new people like me, willing to understand. I just hope it wont turn into a circus scenario where the whole cell practically BECOMES the tornado like what happened with that Maxi-grinder Wedge-fest at the end of "Into the Storm". I will be praying, but i doubt it will be answered. :(
 
The sky background in this part of the trailer is odd - there is a nice bell-shaped supercell updraft, yet it doesn’t appear to be connected to an updraft tower, the clouds above it don’t look quite right to me. In any case, there’s the updraft in the distance, yet seconds later there’s a tornado developing right over the kid’s head. Also the blowing flags seem to show outflow at first, then immediately switch to inflow, which of course is possible but just doesn’t seem right to me at the time and location as shown in the scene. Yeah I guess we shouldn’t be expecting much meteorological accuracy in the movie, but I was hoping not to immediately see a few glaring things just in a one-minute trailer. Besides, if we can’t geek out on this kind of stuff on ST, who else would listen? 😏
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