Back in 1996, the Twister cast, outside of Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton was largely unknown. At the time, not too many of them were famous. However, in the years since the film, much of that has changed and much of the Twister cast has gone on to fame both in front and behind the camera.
Helen Hunt was arguably the film’s biggest star in the cast back in ’96, but she wasn’t the first choice for the movie. Before the role of Dr. Jo Harding went to her, Jurassic Park standout Laura Dern, Bridget Fonda, and Kate Mulgrew almost wore the good doctor’s white tank top and reinforced mud-stompers. Initially, Tom Hanks eyed the role of Bill Harding but ultimately felt Twister wasn’t the right fit for his brand of character creation. Other actors floated for Bill Harding include Kevin Costner, Michael Keaton, Kurt Russell, Richard Gere, John Cusack, Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage, and Val Kilmer. Finally, the late Bill Paxton, who was coming off an acclaimed turn in Apollo 13 won the role. In the years that follow, both Hunt and Paxton saw their careers elevated, with Hunt winning an Oscar the next year for As Good As It Gets, while Paxton starred opposite a young Charlize Theron in Mighty Joe Young.
Mimic, and Mighty Aphrodite actor Mira Sorvino nearly played Melissa Reeves. However, after she refused to dye her hair, Jami Gertz joined the Storm-Chasers for their history-making mission. House actor Hugh Laurie almost played Elwes’ Dr. Jonas Miller, and even Alec Baldwin nearly starred as the invisible mustache-twirling meteorologist. Finally, country singer Garth Brooks almost played Dusty, the overly-enthusiastic Storm-Chaser wildly acted by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. According to reports, Brooks abandoned the opportunity after discovering the tornado is the film’s star, not him.
Once all was said and done, Twister pulled an impressive number of notable actors into orbit. In addition to the core cast members, Twister stars Ferris Bueller’s Day Off actor Alan Ruck (who would have a major comeback as one of the stars of Succession), The People Under the Stairs mischief maker Sean Whalen, Lost and God of War actor Jeremy Davies, and a glut of other talents in Lois Smith, Scott Thompson, Joey Slotnick, Wendie Joesepher, Zach Greiner, Patrick Fischler, and even Todd Field, whose body of work in Hollywood has grown by leaps and bounds since his tornado chasing days. His latest achievement includes serving as the director and writer of Tár, the biographical drama starring Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tár, the first female director of a major German orchestra.
In 1992, writer Jeffrey Hilton presented Steven Speilberg’s Amblin Entertainment with a 10-page story about a group of storm-chasers called “Catch the Wind.” Hilton’s pitch swept up Speilberg, leaving the legendary filmmaker spinning with ideas about a category F5 tornado ripping through cinemas and laying waste to the box office. With stars and debris in his eyes, Spielberg contacted Jurassic Park and Westworld writer Michael Crichton and his actress wife, Anne-Marie Martin, to adapt Hilton’s story. The couple cashed a check for $2.5 million to pen the screenplay, making Twister the most expensive script in cinematic history up until that point in time.
Produced by Amblin Entertainment as part of a financial partnership with Warner Bros. Pictures and Universal Pictures, Spielberg thought about directing Twister. However, he opted for an executive producer position instead and opened the floor to his fellow creatives in the industry. Spielberg’s buddy and Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis considered taking on the project, with notable names like James Cameron, John Bedham, and even Tim Burton in contention. Ultimately, Dutch filmmaker Jan de Bont accepted the gig, whose eye for action gave moviegoers the gift of Speed in 1994.
Fortuitously, de Bont was in the midst of a transition after exiting the production of Godzilla due to creative differences. Disaster film extraordinaire Roland Emmerich eventually boarded the bastardization of Japan’s legendary lizard king, but that’s a video for another time.
Despite the combined writing prowess of Crichton and Martin, other writers joined the project to polish the couple’s work. Enter Joss Whedon, a favored fix-it writer for screenplays needing polish. Whedon, whose signature style rings throughout contemporary pop culture touchstones like Marvel’s Avengers and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, started re-writing the material until bronchitis forced him to surrender the gig to Schindler’s List scribe Steven Zallian. Whedon eventually returned. However, production was already in effect, making changes difficult to manage with wheels already in motion. Finally, Catch Me If You Can writer Jeff Nathanson joined the team as a script doctor and remained on the project until filming was complete.
Jan de Bont’s Twister gives audiences a front-row seat aboard a roller coaster of action and special effects. The story takes place in Oklahoma, along Tornado Alley, during what meteorologists call Storm Season. Due to changes in Earth’s weather patterns, Storm Season has shifted throughout the years. Today, Storm Season rages from June to November, with October being a particularly nasty period in this often destructive sequence.
Twister introduces audiences to a misfit group of storm-chasers led by Dr. Joanna Harding, played by Mad About You actor Helen Hunt. With Storm Season in full effect, the goal of Dr. Harding’s crew is for the successful launch of “Dorothy,” a capsule-like device capable of launching weather sensors to map seemingly unpredictable tornado patterns. Bill Paxton’s Bill Harding, a retired storm-chaser and Dr. Joanna Harding’s soon-to-be ex-husband, is swept up in the launch of this history-making device. Bill is looking to finalize his divorce from Jo and start a new life as a weatherman with his fiance Dr. Melissa Reeves, played by The Lost Boys actor Jami Gertz. However, once Bill realizes the “Dorothy” prototype he designed is complete, he rejoins the effort to make history before a rival gang of scientists led by Cary Elwes’ Dr. Jonas Miller can beat them to the punch using a similar device.
After several failed attempts to launch “Dorothy” into the whirling maws of menacing windstorms, the storm-chasers learn that an F5-level tornado is approaching fast. With two “Dorothy” devices left, Bill and Jo run headlong into the belly of the beast, hoping the last-minute changes they’ve made to the machine yield successful results. After the storm, an alarming amount of devastation, the destruction of Bill’s engagement, and the revitalization of a failed partnership, Twister winds to an intense finale that leaves you feeling more blown away than the guy in the Max Hell commercial from 1992’s Stay Tuned. (Insert clip of the Max Hell commercial from Stay Tuned here)
While writers and production managers were hard at work, casting agents for Twister encountered challenges at nearly every turn.
Initially, Twister was going to shoot in the United Kingdom and California, but de Bont insisted on filming in Oklahoma. In a 2020 interview with Vulture, de Bont said Twister might be the “last great action movie not shot on a soundstage,” tipping his hat to a bygone era of primarily practical effects and on-location filming. De Bont positioned his crew all over the state, setting up shots in places like Fairfax, Ralston, Kaw Lake, and Stillwater, Oklahoma.
De Bont got locals involved in the production when the crew moved to Wakita, where Lois Smith’s character serves the meanest steak and eggs in Tornado Alley. In addition to filming around town, the studio demolished a defunct portion of the area, making that section look like it fought an F4 tornado and lost. The studio welcomed many locals onto the set and paid them $100 daily to be extras in the film. Once filming was complete, de Bont carted everyone off to Iowa for the film’s grand finale involving a catastrophic F5 tornado sequence.
At times, filming for Twister resulted in more turbulence than a raging tsunami. The list of personal injuries or illnesses to the cast and crew is extensive. Still, let’s look at the highlight reel, shall we? Partly through filming, Hunt and Paxton experienced retinal damage and were temporarily blinded after prolonged exposure to reflections from a lighting rig. The duo also needed hepatitis shots after romping around a filthy ditch for several hours. The hits don’t stop there, seeing as Hunt hit her head numerous times, possibly resulting in a concussion. de Bont reportedly shrugged Hunt’s injuries off, labeling her “clumsy.” Hunt disagrees when the subject of her injuries comes about, often noting that de Bont’s keen direction led to her eyes getting baked inside her skull.
While we’re talking about de Bont, this feels like as good a time as any to mention he wasn’t particularly well-liked by cast and crew members. There are several stories about de Bont’s behavior on the Twister set, including a disturbing altercation when he knocked a camera assistant to the ground in anger. Due to his unhinged aggression, cinematographer Don Burgess left the project, leaving Jack N. Green to pick up the baton. Unfortunately, Green was injured during filming and needed hospitalization. Tired of playing musical chairs on his own film, de Bont took over as the film’s director of photography.
Beyond health and safety hazards, unpredictable weather, and creator clashes, Twister soon encountered a more significant problem. On April 19, 1995, a domestic terrorist bombing occurred at the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. The senseless bombing killed 168 people, injured more than 680 others, and reduced more than 1/3 of the building to rubble and cinders. Because of the tragedy, Warner Bros. suspended Twister‘s production, so members of the cast and crew could travel to the site of the attack and help the recovery teams.
After the delay, production on Twister resumed. Unfortunately, only some were having fun making the film. For what is often referred to as one of the most notorious feuds in Hollywood history, reports of Paxton and Hunt not getting along are well known. You would never know this based on the duo’s on-screen chemistry, but it’s true. When Universal Studios built the Twister… Ride It Out theme park attraction, neither Paxton nor Hunt wanted to act alongside their co-star in the ride’s intro video. The couple filmed their parts separately, even though their characters interact with one another in the footage.
While we’re on the topic of animosity, Hunt notoriously hated working on Twister. Aside from finding Paxton challenging to tolerate, the film took a significant physical toll on its stars. Hunt endured several injuries, infections, and less-than-ideal filming conditions throughout production. Speaking with the Huffington Post, she described the film as a “nightmare.” She also noted that she was pelted with giant ice balls and shot with a firehose while filming. “I was really happy to make it through in one piece,” Hunt told the Post about her Twister experience.
If you want to get nostalgic, pop the Twister soundtrack into your headphones and crank the volume to eleven. In addition to an orchestral score by Mark Mancina, the film released a soundtrack that’s so ’90s it’ll have you looking for a chain wallet and thermal to wear beneath your vintage Nirvana t-shirt. Whipping up a storm of sonic sounds for the Twister soundtrack are Van Halen, Rusted Root, Tori Amos, Soul Asylum, Belly, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, the Goo Goo Dolls, and more. Many wrote songs exclusively for the film, with Eddie and Alex Van Halen performing the instrumental theme song “Respect the Wind.”
Upon release, Twister took the box office by storm. The film opened with $41.1 million from 2,414 markets, casting a banishing spell on Andrew Fleming’s supernatural horror film The Craft for the top spot. After moving around the charts for several weeks, Twister ended its theatrical run with $494.5 million in returns, becoming the second-highest-grossing film of 1996, right behind Roland Emmerich’s uber-patriotic disaster film Independence Day.
When the time came for Twister to wreak havoc in homes worldwide, it did so as the first film released on DVD. VHS and LaserDisc versions of de Bont’s disasterpiece blew onto the home market, though the DVD version was considered a technological milestone. The film performed well during awards season, garnering two Oscar nominations for Best Sound and Best Visual Effects. While the movie lost both categories to The English Patient for Best Sound and Independence Day for Best Visual Effects, it did take home a BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects.
In late 2022, Minari director Lee Isaac Chung became attached to Twisters, a sequel to the original Twister, with Helen Hunt possibly returning as Dr. Joanna Harding. (record scratch) I’m sorry, did you say Helen Hunt might be coming back? That’s what the whispers would have us believe, even after the “nightmare” experience of making the first film. In the end, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos (who had a hit last year with Transformers: Rise of the Beasts) and Kiernan Shipka would be starring. While it was originally assumed that the film would focus on the daughter of Hunt and Paxton’s characters from the original, new co-star Glen Powell clarified the film will be a standalone story. He said Twisters is “definitely not a reboot. We’re not trying to recreate the story from the first one. It’s a completely original story. There are no characters from the original movie back, so it’s not really a continuation. It’s just its own standalone story in the modern-day. I don’t think anyone has brought up (Twister) in forever, but talking to people, they’re like, ‘That was one of my favorite movies growing up. That movie terrified me.’“
Despite a torrent of behind-the-scenes shenanigans, Twister remains a high watermark for disaster cinema. It might have been challenging to film, but the peppering of practical effects, off-the-charts character chemistry, and thrilling depiction of Mother Nature throwing hands make Twister one of Hollywood’s most memorable films. I’m excited to report that the movie still holds up after 26 years, even if the effects industry has grown exponentially. Let’s face it; sometimes less is more, and Twister comes by its action and emotion honestly while pushing the limits of 1990s filmmaking techniques.
After revisiting this film, I’ll be damned if I don’t want to go for a drink with Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s Dusty. His unbridled enthusiasm for danger in the name of progress is infectious and one of my most cherished performances by the late actor. I also want to give it up for Jami Gertz’s Dr. Melissa Reeves. Despite nearly being eaten by a tornado and enduring her fiance’s buffoonery for most of the film, she kept her composure in the face of ludicrousness. She more than earns her flowers, as far as I’m concerned.
With so many performances, characters, and harrowing moments to love, Twister is a prime example of extreme filmmaking yielding rip-roaring results that stand the test of time. If you plan to revisit Twister, prepare to get blown away all over again.