Twister
The dark side of nature.
Twister (1996)
Production
Budget
$92 000 000
Revenue
$494 471 524
Director
Scenario
Composer
Producer
Actors
All actors and roles (10)
Short description
Twister follows a team of storm chasers in Oklahoma as an unusually severe outbreak of tornadoes moves across the region. Jo Harding leads the group, which is trying to place a scientific device inside a tornado to gather data that could improve warning systems. Her estranged husband Bill, a former chaser now working as a weatherman, is drawn back into the pursuit while he and Jo arrange their divorce. He brings along his girlfriend Melissa, and the team also faces a rival group of chasers competing for the same opportunity. Personal tensions play out against the wider danger of the storms.
Jan de Bont directed the film, his second feature after Speed, released two years earlier and followed by Speed 2: Cruise Control, The Haunting and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life. Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin wrote the screenplay; Kathleen Kennedy, Crichton and Ian Bryce produced. Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton star, with Jami Gertz, Cary Elwes, Lois Smith and Philip Seymour Hoffman in supporting roles. The production cost about 92 million dollars and took roughly 494 million dollars worldwide.
On IMDb the film holds 6.6 out of 10 from around 251,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.6 out of 10 from just under 4,000 votes. A critics' score of 6.7 out of 10 from 142 reviews places it close to those audience figures.
What's left behind the scenes
- The oil tanker explosion happened off schedule, and they didn't have time to film it. Director Jan de Bont decided not to tell the studio (at least, not right away), and the stunt was repeated in front of the camera.
- Little Joe's dog is the same breed as Toto from 'The Wizard of Oz' (1939).
- Eight blocks of the old city center were purchased in Wakita, Oklahoma, for filming, with each surviving building appraised at between $7,000 and $10,000. These buildings, along with an additional 30 houses built for the film, were destroyed by a simulated tornado. Municipal authorities subsequently rebuilt the city center, and a new fire truck purchased for filming remained on the city's books.
- The film was originally shot as an R-rated project. During post-production, the film was edited for a PG-13 rating, resulting in some scenes with Cary Elwes and Philip Seymour Hoffman being cut. Swearing was also removed from other scenes to lower the rating.
- After Bill Paxton’s death in 2017, the Spotter Network monitoring system honored his memory by organizing a kind of flash mob with the participation of 200 storm chasers – they formed the huge letters BP in the sky.
- Initially, Tom Hanks was considered for the role of Bill Harding. He attended script read-throughs, helped choose the wardrobe for his character, but eventually left the project, stating that “it wasn’t for him.” While filming "Apollo 13", Hanks decided that his co-star Bill Paxton would be perfect in the role of his character in "Twister".
- A Boeing 707 engine was used to generate wind in some scenes.
- According to Jan de Bont, he later regretted deciding to film hail, due to the complexity of organizing such shoots. Hail of the required size could not be found in Oklahoma, and it had to be brought in from other states. To create the hailstones, water was frozen with milk – this made the hail look better on film.
- The tornado researchers in the film use a device called "Dorothy," but in reality, the device was named "T.O.T.O."
- Sunny days turned out to be a problem during filming, as it was impossible to make the sky look gloomy. The solution was found in using high-powered lighting, which emphasized the contrast of the image. As a result, Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton suffered minor retinal burns.
- A Boeing 707 engine was used to generate wind for some scenes.
- The scene of farm equipment falling around the main characters was filmed by suspending aluminum mock-ups of the equipment on cables lowered from army helicopters and dropping them at the right moment. A red pickup truck then drove through the falling equipment, and the director, Jan de Bont, filmed the scene from the passenger seat. He didn't want to endanger the crew or the equipment, so some of the falling structures were added using computer graphics. When one of the objects accidentally hit the pickup truck, the director decided to leave it in the film.
- During the filming of the scene where the truck drives through the cornfield, Helen Hunt sustained a head injury from hitting the car door. When filming subsequent takes of the same scene, the truck door was simply jammed in the correct position.
- Jan de Bont didn't want to work with famous actors because of their whims and star power. According to the director, Helen Hunt was the most difficult. He wanted to cast her because she was a strong personality capable of leading, and he likened the actress's nature to a tornado. However, the studio executives weren't so sure about his choice (Hunt was primarily known to audiences as a sitcom actress), and de Bont was forced to announce additional auditions. The director said this put him in an awkward position, as he had to turn down every actress who auditioned and tell them he'd already decided to cast Hunt, then report back to the studio that none of the auditioning actresses were suitable.
- At Aunt Meg's house, the 1954 film 'A Star is Born,' starring Judy Garland, is on television. Judy played the role of Dorothy in 'The Wizard of Oz' (1939), which also features a tornado scene.
- In one scene, a power line pole falls on Bill’s car and overturns "Dorothy II." But after a short time, Bill and Jo get into the car and drive away. There is no pole to be seen anymore.
- The Stanley Kubrick film "The Shining" is being shown in cinemas. The researchers swept away with the car by a tornado are named Stanley and Kubrick.
- The sound produced by the 'Dorothy' device is a combination of the sounds of police, fire, and ambulance sirens.
- Jan de Bont agreed to direct the film because, given the rapid development of computer technology in the 1990s, he saw this project as perhaps his last chance to make a film with practical effects.
- The cow carried away by the tornado, created using computer technology, was previously a digital zebra in the film "Jumanji".
- Bill Paxton met Steven Spielberg only a year and a half after finishing work on the film. According to the actor, Spielberg thanked him for earning him “a lot of money”.
- Slowed-down recordings of a camel's sound were used as the sound of a tornado.
- Surround sound speakers were breaking in cinemas due to the volume of the sound.
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