Twister (1996 film)

Twister was produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, with financial backing from Warner Bros. Pictures and Universal Pictures.[1] In return, Warner Bros. was given the North American distribution rights, while Universal's joint venture distribution company United International Pictures (UIP) obtained international distribution rights.[1][6] The original concept and 10-page tornado-chaser story were presented to Amblin Entertainment in 1992, written by Jeffrey Hilton under the title Catch the Wind. Steven Spielberg was intrigued by the idea and presented the concept to writer Michael Crichton. Crichton and his wife, Anne-Marie Martin, were paid a reported $2.5 million to write the screenplay, which made Twister the single most expensive screenplay ever written at that time.

Spielberg himself was originally attached to direct the project, and directors such as James Cameron, John Badham, Tim Burton, and Robert Zemeckis were also in talks to helm the film before Jan de Bont signed on to Twister after leaving Godzilla due to creative differences.[7] He recently had a huge hit after directing his first film, Speed, which was released in 1994. The Dutch filmmaker's resume as a director of photography had included Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October. Also, one of the main characters, Bill Harding, was set to be played by Tom Hanks, however, he dropped out of the film and would later work on That Thing You Do! as writer and director instead, saying that "an action movie wasn't what I wanted to do at that point in my career." While working on Apollo 13, Hanks suggested the role to his co-star, Bill Paxton. He was hired based in part on the recommendation of his friend and frequent collaborator James Cameron, and De Bont liked that Paxton was actually experienced with Oklahoma.[8] Meanwhile, Helen Hunt chose not to play Terry Carmichael in Broken Arrow and would instead play Jo Thornton-Harding after Laura Dern declined on playing that role.[9]

The production was plagued with problems: Joss Whedon was brought in to rewrite through the early spring of 1995. When Whedon contracted bronchitis, Steven Zaillian was brought in to work on script revisions. Whedon later returned and worked on revisions right through the start of shooting in May 1995, then left the project after he got married. Two weeks into production, Jeff Nathanson was flown to the set and worked on the script until principal photography ended.[7] After the Oklahoma City bombing occurred on April 19, 1995, filming of Twister was suspended while the cast and crew worked with relief efforts.[10]

There was a scene where Dusty was laughing heartily and leaning back, lifting one of his legs. The earliest cut of the film had a brief moment where his genitalia were clearly visible. As a result, the CGI crew had to hastily augment the shot.[8]

Filming was to originally take place in the United Kingdom and California, but De Bont insisted the film be shot on location in Oklahoma because he felt that Twister could be "the last great action movie not shot on a soundstage".[11] Shooting commenced all over the state; several scenes, including the opening scene where the characters meet each other, as well as the first tornado chase in the Jeep pickup, were filmed in Fairfax and Ralston, Oklahoma.[12] The scene at the automotive repair shop was filmed in Maysville and Norman. The waterspout scenes were filmed on Kaw Lake near Kaw City. The drive-in scene was filmed at a real drive-in theater in Guthrie, though some of the scene, such as Melissa's hotel room, was filmed in Stillwater near the Oklahoma State University campus. The films played at the drive-in theater were The Shining and Psycho as part of the Night of Horrors combo.[13]

The real town of Wakita – serving as the hometown of Lois Smith's character, Meg, in the film – was used during filming, and a section of the older part of town was demolished for the scene showing the aftermath of the F4 tornado that devastates the town. This location was selected after scouts discovered leftover debris from a major hailstorm that occurred two years earlier in June 1993. Most of the residents signed up for extra materials and were paid $100 per day.[14] Additional scenes and B-roll were filmed near Ponca City and Pauls Valley, among several other smaller farm towns across the state.[15] However, due to changing seasons that massively transformed the look of Oklahoma's topography, filming was moved to Iowa. The climactic scene with the F5 tornado was almost entirely shot around Eldora, Iowa, with the cornfield the characters run through located near Ames.[16][17] The "twister hill" scene was shot on 130th Street near the small town of Pilot Mound. Some additional footage was shot north of Pilot Mound, near the town of Dayton. After primary filming had wrapped, additional pick-up shots and reshoots, which included the opening scene and additional footage of the drive-in tornado, took place in Bolton, Ontario and Schomberg, Ontario.

Halfway through filming, both Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt were temporarily blinded by bright electronic lamps used to make the sky behind the two actors look dark and stormy. Paxton remembers that "these things literally sunburned our eyeballs. I got back to my room, I couldn't see".[7] To solve the problem, a Plexiglas filter was placed in front of the beams. The actors took eye drops and wore special glasses for a few days to recuperate. After filming in a particularly unsanitary ditch (for the first tornado chase scene, in which Bill and Jo are forced to shelter from an approaching F1 tornado under a short bridge), Hunt and Paxton needed hepatitis shots. During the same sequence, Hunt repeatedly hit her head on a low wooden bridge, so exhausted from the demanding shoot that she stood up so quickly her head struck a beam.[7] During one stunt in which Hunt opened the door of a vehicle speeding through a cornfield, she momentarily let go of the door and it struck her on the side of the head. Some sources claim she received a concussion in the incident. De Bont said, "I love Helen to death, but you know, she can be also a little bit clumsy". She responded, "Clumsy? The guy burned my retinas, but I'm clumsy ... I thought I was a good sport. I don't know ultimately if Jan chalks me up as that or not, but one would hope so".[7]

Some crew members, feeling that De Bont was "out of control", left the production five weeks into filming.[7] The camera crew led by Don Burgess claimed De Bont "didn't know what he wanted till he saw it. He would shoot one direction, with all the equipment behind the view of the camera, and then he'd want to shoot in the other direction right away and we'd have to move [everything] and he'd get angry that we took too long ... and it was always everybody else's fault, never his".[7] De Bont claims that they had to schedule at least three scenes every day because the weather changed so often, and "Don had trouble adjusting to that".[7]

When De Bont knocked over a camera assistant in a fit of rage who missed a cue, Burgess and his crew walked off the set, much to the shock of the cast. They remained in place for one more week until Jack N. Green's crew agreed to replace them. Two days before principal filming ended, Green was injured when a hydraulic house set (used in the scene in which Jo and Bill rescue Meg and her dog, Mose, from her tornado-destroyed home in Wakita), designed to collapse on cue, was mistakenly activated with him inside it. A rigged ceiling hit him in the head and injured his back, requiring him to be hospitalized. De Bont took over as his own director of photography for the remaining shots.[7]

Because overcast skies were not always available, De Bont had to shoot many of the film's tornado-chasing scenes in bright sunlight, requiring Industrial Light & Magic to more than double its original plan for 150 "digital sky-replacement" shots.[7] Principal photography was originally given a deadline to allow Hunt to return to film the fourth season of her NBC sitcom Mad About You, but when shooting ran over schedule, series creator and actor Paul Reiser agreed to delay the show's production for two-and-a-half weeks so Twister could finish filming. De Bont insisted on using multiple cameras, which led to the exposure of 1,300,000 feet (400,000 m) of film, compared to the usual maximum of 300,000 feet (91,000 m).[7] The tornadoes in the film were not real, but were instead computer-animated.[18] To compose the sound effects of these twisters, De Bont had recorded a variety of combined sound effects, including lion roars, tiger growls, camel moans and jet engine wooshes.[19] Other special effects that were animated with CGI included telephone poles, trees, trucks, tractors and whole houses. The crew used a Boeing 707 airplane engine and smaller fans to generate wind throughout the film.[19] The flying cow was perhaps the most famous scene throughout the film. The CGI cow was originally a CGI zebra from the 1995 film Jumanji.[20] During the hailstorm scene after locating a particularly juicy storm cell on the radar, Beltzer says "That's no moon, it's a space station!", which is a reference to Obi-Wan Kenobi's quote from the first Star Wars movie, A New Hope.[21] Plus, the gasoline truck seen flying around the F5 tornado has the Benthic Petroleum label, bearing the same name of the company from The Abyss, James Cameron's 1989 20th Century Fox film.[22]

De Bont claims that Twister cost close to $70 million, of which $2–3 million went to the director. It was speculated that last-minute re-shoots in March and April 1996 (to clarify a scene about Jo as a child) and overtime requirements in post-production and at ILM, raised the budget to $90 million.[7] The film was set to be released on May 17. Warner Bros. eventually made the decision to push forward Twister's release date to May 10 in order to avoid audience cannibalization with the release of Paramount's Mission: Impossible two weekends later. The premiere took place at the AMC Penn Square 10, then known as General Cinema Theatres at Penn Square Mall in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma a day prior. Jan de Bont, Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt were at the mall for interviews.[23]

Prints of Twister came with a note from De Bont, suggesting that exhibitors play the film at a higher volume than normal for full effect.

There is also some other music, such as Deep Purple's "Child in Time" (heard when the team takes the road at the beginning and the assistant maximises the volume in his truck). It's later in the scene mixed and beat synced with William Tell Overture.

The song queued up on a TV in Dusty's van is Eric Clapton's "Motherless Child".

There are some orchestrated tracks that were in the film but were not released on the orchestral score, most notably the orchestrated intro to "Humans Being" from when Jo's team left Wakita to chase the Hailstorm Hill tornado. Other, lesser-known tracks omitted include an extended version of "Going Green" (when we first meet Jonas) and a short track from when the first tornado is initially spotted.

In January 2017, La-La Land Records released a limited edition remastered and expanded album[24] containing Mark Mancina's entire score plus four additional tracks.

Twister opened on May 10, 1996, earning $41.1 million from 2,414 total theaters during its opening weekend, and ranked in the number one spot at the North American box office, taking the spot off of The Craft. Upon its release, it topped The Birdcage to have the biggest 1996 opening.[25] At that time, it had the sixth largest opening weekend of any movie, behind The Lion King, Batman, Batman Returns, Jurassic Park and Batman Forever.[26] Moreover, the film had the largest May opening weekend, dethroning Lethal Weapon 3 and The Flintstones.[27] The success of Twister helped the blockbusters of May officially begin the summer season. It would follow similar openings of Deep Impact in 1998 and The Mummy in 1999. Two years later in 2001, The Mummy Returns set a new precedent for the frame by unleashing an opening weekend of $68.1 million. Then in 2002, Spider-Man took the summer starter films to the next level with its $114.8 million opening weekend.[28][29]

During its second weekend, Twister managed to dominate Flipper with an additional $38.5 million.[30] The film would suffer a 10% second weekend drop, making it the smallest decline for a non-holiday film. For 15 years, Twister would achieve that record until it was surpassed by DreamWorks' Puss in Boots in 2011.[31] By May 21, it reached the $100 million mark.[32] Not too long after, the number one spot was taken by Mission: Impossible, putting Twister into second place. Like its predecessor, the film would also have the largest May opening weekend.[33] It would go on to hold this record until 1997 when it was taken by The Lost World: Jurassic Park.[34] As for Twister, it would continue to stay in second place while beating out Dragonheart.[35] When The Rock was released that June, the film was put into third place.[36] It would then approach $200 million by June 19.[37] Twister plunged into fifth place shortly after the releases of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Eraser.[38] After Independence Day was released in July, the film crossed over Ghostbusters to become the thirteenth-highest domestic grossing film of all time.[39] It would continue to dominate the box office, especially during the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.[40]

After twelve weeks of release, the film earned $231.3 million. By this point, it had become twelfth-highest domestic grosser, surpassing The Empire Strikes Back.[41] Twister went on to earn a total of $241.7 million at the North American box office, and a worldwide total of $494.5 million during its theatrical run. It became the second-highest-grossing film of 1996, behind Independence Day,[42] and was the tenth-highest-grossing film in history at the time of its release, making it the most successful Warner Bros. film release, surpassing Batman. In 2001, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone took Twister's record for becoming the highest-grossing Warner Bros. film of all time. The A-level disaster movie right before Hollywood went all-in for a few years to offer the likes of Independence Day, Dante's Peak, Volcano, Titanic, Deep Impact, Armageddon, The Core, The Day After Tomorrow and War of the Worlds.[26] As of 2020, Twister ranks at #76 among the highest-grossing North American movie releases of all-time; worldwide, it places #105 on the all-time earners list, not adjusted for inflation.[2]

Twister received generally positive reviews, with many critics praising the jaw-dropping special effects that brought the storms to life.[43] On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 63% "Fresh" based on 70 reviews, and an average rating of 6.1/10. The site's critics consensus read: "A high-concept blockbuster that emphasizes special effects over three-dimensional characters, Twister's visceral thrills are often offset by the film's generic plot."[44] On Metacritic the film had a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[45] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[46]

Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "You want loud, dumb, skillful, escapist entertainment? Twister works. You want to think? Think twice about seeing it".[47] In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "Somehow Twister stays as uptempo and exuberant as a roller-coaster ride, neatly avoiding the idea of real danger".[48] Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B" rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, "Yet the images that linger longest in my memory are those of windswept livestock. And that, in a teacup, sums up everything that's right, and wrong, about this appealingly noisy but ultimately flyaway first blockbuster of summer".[49] In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote, "But the ringmaster of this circus, the man without whom nothing would be possible, is director De Bont, who now must be considered Hollywood's top action specialist. An expert in making audiences squirm and twist, at making us feel the rush of experience right along with the actors, De Bont choreographs action and suspense so beautifully he makes it seem like a snap."[50] Time magazine's Richard Schickel wrote, "when action is never shown to have deadly or pitiable consequences, it tends toward abstraction. Pretty soon you're not tornado watching, you're special-effects watching".[51] In his review for the Washington Post Desson Howe wrote, "it's a triumph of technology over storytelling and the actors' craft. Characters exist merely to tell a couple of jokes, cower in fear of downdrafts and otherwise kill time between tornadoes".[52]

Twister was released on LaserDisc and VHS by Warner Home Video on October 1, 1996. The VHS release contains a Space Jam trailer, as well as a Looney Tunes cartoon with Bugs Bunny and Taz. As soon as the film finishes, there is a message by Federal Emergency Management Agency with James Lee Witt.[53] By November 1996, it topped the number one spot in Billboard's top sales.[54] However, that spot was soon taken by Toy Story, which put Twister into third place.[55] The film was released on DVD on March 26, 1997. It is considered to be the first home release of a movie to use this now widely-used optical media technology.[56][57] This is also the first THX certified DVD release. The viewer is given the option of viewing the film in widescreen on one side of the disc and pan and scan full screen on the other side.[58] The DVD release occurred eleven days before Twister made its pay-cable debut on HBO on April 5,[59] deviating from the then-standard film release "window" that normally placed a four- to six-month gap between a movie's initial home video release—which typically overlapped with its pay-per-view availability period—and premium cable distribution window. Twister was then released on VHS by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment through CIC Video in the UK on March 10, 1997 and July 14, 1997.

The film was released on DVD once again on June 6, 2000.[60] Eight years later on May 6, 2008, a two-disc special edition DVD and Blu-ray were released.[61] An HD DVD was then released on May 27, becoming one of the last HD DVDs to be ever released.[62]

On April 3, 1996, Sega Pinball released Twister, a pinball machine themed to the same name of the film. It features modes including Canister Multiball, Chase Multiball, Multibull and more.[69]

The film was used as the basis for the attraction Twister...Ride It Out at Universal Studios Florida, which features filmed introductions by Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. The attraction opened on May 4, 1998 and closed on November 1, 2015 to make way for Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon.[70] In the windows of the New York facade lies a tribute to Twister...Ride it Out with references to the film and Bill Paxton.[71]

The original screenplay, written by Crichton and then-wife Anne Marie Martin, was released as a mass-market paperback in conjunction with the film.[72]

The story of Bill's drunken encounter with a tornado is referenced in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn downloadable content when asking the bartender of the Retching Netch in Raven Rock, Geldis Sadri, about how the inn got its name. He explains about a Dark Elf (Dunmer) that was one of his regular customers and very drunk, and naked, offering his drink to a netch, before tossing the bottle at the netch. The netch apparently caught and swallowed some of the alcohol as the bottle never hit the ground, but this caused the netch to become intoxicated itself, floating crookedly, and this resulted in it throwing up due to the drink making it very sick, releasing a very foul stench from its maw.