Flying Cows and Spielberg’s Rage: The Turbulent Creation of 1996’s “Twister”

The flying cow wasn’t that far-fetched. In the midpoint of Twister, the smash hit 1996 disaster movie that captured audiences with its gale-force effects, a poor bovine drifts across the sky like a lost balloon. And it once sort of happened. “We went into one little town just after a twister passed through,” the film’s stunt coordinator, Mic Rodgers, recalls. “It threw a 40-foot cattle truck 15 feet out into a field, killing half the cows in it. I literally saw straw stuck into a telephone pole. Don’t ask me how that works.”

Part action film, part screwball romance, Twister was conceived by writer Michael Crichton as a mash-up of the classic romcom His Girl Friday and a PBS documentary about storm chasers. Helen Hunt plays Jo, a meteorologist whose father was sucked into a twister when she was a child. She dedicates her life to studying tornadoes, creating a device designed to be sucked into vortexes to gather vital data. Her estranged husband Bill (Bill Paxton), who has left his tornado-wrangling days behind, is ready to settle down with a new, sensible woman (Jami Gertz). But Jo, too preoccupied with saving rural midwestern communities, conveniently “forgot” to sign the divorce papers. Chasing storms alongside them are the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alan Ruck from Succession, and Todd Field, who would later direct Tár.

Twister was a surprise phenomenon upon its release. With a budget of $90 million, it garnered nearly $500 million worldwide, trailing only Independence Day that year but outpacing Mission: Impossible. The movie inspired a dedicated museum in Wakita, Kansas, and even influenced a spike in meteorology students. When Bill Paxton died in 2017, real-life storm chasers paid tribute in large numbers. With a soundtrack featuring Van Halen, Twister epitomized the Nineties disaster movie, alongside titles like Volcano, Dante’s Peak, and Armageddon. Unlike many of its peers, the action still holds up today. Many have revisited it in anticipation of next week’s release of Twisters, a standalone sequel starring Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones. Early reviews have been positive, and the lack of production horror stories suggests some improvements over its predecessor.

Filmed on location during tornado season in Oklahoma, the original Twister was a product of director Jan de Bont, who had achieved immense success with Speed two years earlier. De Bont insisted on maximum realism, sending Rodgers and his crew to capture shots of key vehicles in front of real tornadoes. However, none of that footage was used in the movie. Rodgers recalls the thrill of cosplaying as a tornado hunter, despite some “gnarly” experiences. One time, while escaping a “wall cloud,” the team feared for their lives as the wind reached 70 miles per hour with heavy hail. They barely managed to get out before suddenly emerging into bright skies.

De Bont’s demands often led to chaos on set. Cinematographer Don Burgess told Entertainment Weekly in 1996 about De Bont’s unreasonable expectations and constant criticism. Burgess left towards the end of production, while De Bont saw no issue with his own approach, asserting that well-paid crews should be held accountable.

Rodgers describes De Bont as “a great guy. Good director. Really good DP [director of photography]”, but notes that behind the camera, he transformed into a “900-pound gorilla.” He recounts Helen Hunt’s frustrations during a scene where she and Paxton were battered by a hailstorm. “She goes, ‘Jan! Jan! Do you want me to do the dialogue?’” De Bont screamed back: “Scream! Just scream, blonde girl, scream!” Infuriated, Hunt yelled obscenities at him before Paxton rolled up the vehicle window.

De Bont’s most infamous outburst nearly derailed the entire production. After pushing a camera assistant, who then tripped into a gulley, the director’s refusal to apologize led to a mass walkout. Steven Spielberg, a producer on the film, flew in to address the chaos. Without even stepping off his plane, Spielberg spent 15 minutes berating De Bont from the stairs of the aircraft.

Several injuries occurred during filming. Hunt was struck in the head by a car door while speeding through a cornfield, with sources claiming she suffered a concussion. Her stunt double fared even worse, cracking a rib in the same scene. Both Hunt and Paxton were temporarily blinded by powerful electric lamps, and Jack N Green, Burgess’s replacement, was hospitalized when a hydraulic house set malfunctioned with him inside it.

Reflecting on the filming in a 2020 interview, Hunt admitted she was unsure if she could go through the process again, but acknowledged the movie “still holds up”. Her sentiments echoed Paxton’s, who had lobbied for a sequel for years before his death. He admitted there were hardships but noted that such stories required paying the freight for such success.

‘Twisters’ is set to release in cinemas on 17 July.