What was it like filming the original 'Twister'? Director describes dodging real tornadoes to film

Jan de Bont had never been to Oklahoma or even seen a tornado in person when he first read the script for "Twister."

But the Dutch filmmaker knew right away where and when he needed to make the movie.

"I had never seen a twister. I only saw storm-chase movies, and I saw the news each time: Every year, there was damage and horrible things happened. So, when I read the script, I felt like, 'Wait a second, everybody knows now what a tornado looks like ... because they're always on TV. So, I have to film in Oklahoma. That's the right landscape for it, that's the right weather there, that's the right feeling in the way that farms look, the way the corn grows,'" de Bont recalled in a recent Zoom interview with The Oklahoman.

"And I insisted ... 'We have to do it in tornado season itself,' of course, running the risk that we would run into tornadoes, which happened several times."

Ahead of the eagerly awaited July 19 theatrical release of the long-awaited follow-up film “Twisters,” de Bont, 80, is taking another spin with his 1996 blockbuster "Twister," including overseeing the 4K remastering process so that the disaster epic can be released on 4K Ultra HD disc and digital for the first time July 9.

"This new transfer, which is absolutely amazing quality in Ultra high-def ... is as good as in the theater and maybe even better," de Bont said.

"It you have those bigger OLED TV screens now, and with the sound system that really surrounds you and that makes it sound actually more intimate ... it is like a much higher quality film than it ever was. So, I was really happy that they let me do it. It's fantastic."

How did Jan de Bont follow up his sleeper hit 'Speed' with the blockbuster 'Twister?'

In the 1970s and '80s, de Bont emerged as a cinematographer first in his native Netherlands and then in the United States. He became an in-demand director of photography in Hollywood for his work on a string of hits, including "Die Hard," "Black Rain," "The Hunt for Red October," "Lethal Weapon 3" and "Basic Instinct."

He made his feature film directorial debut with the 1994 thriller "Speed." Starring Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock and Dennis Hopper, the bomb-on-a-bus action vehicle earned rave reviews and became a huge sleeper hit.

For his follow-up, de Bont took a chance on "Twister," a natural disaster movie starring Helen Hunt, the late Bill Paxton, Cary Elwes, Jami Gertz and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman as fictional storm chasers tracking a series of powerful tornadoes.

Working from a screenplay by Michael Crichton ("Jurassic Park") and Anne-Marie Martin, de Bont filmed "Twister" across the state, including in Guthrie, Maysville, Norman, Fairfax and Wakita, largely in locations that he said were "in the middle of nowhere, let's be honest."

"I was so surprised at the support we got when we landed there. When all these tractor-trailers and all those things came together, covering multiple meadows, I think the people that lived there thought that some aliens had invaded their terrain, because that's what we looked like," he recalled.

"But then, they got very quickly, very, very interested, and a lot of people were wanting to work on the movie. ... And they loved it."

How did 'Twister' build on the filmmaking advancements of 'Jurassic Park?'

"Twister" was produced by Crichton, Kathleen Kennedy and Ian Bryce. Cinema icon Steven Spielberg, Walter Parkes, Laurie MacDonald and Gerald R. Molen served as executive producers.

Before recent powerhouse productions like Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" and the inaugural season of "Tulsa King" came to the Sooner State, the storm-chasing thriller was one of the biggest projects to ever film in Oklahoma.

But the project perhaps defied some Oklahomans' expectations of moviemaking as a glamorous profession.

"They could not understand, 'why do you guys have to work 12 hours every day?' And for us, that was normal, so 'What do you mean?' We didn't even understand the question," de Bont said with a laugh.

The director and his team were exposed to the harsh realities of storm season in Oklahoma once filming got underway and they were forced to flee severe weather several times.

"So, we have this whole circus of like 300 people that suddenly have to be evacuated and quickly moved away from the location we were, just for safeguarding them," de Bont said. "We had a total weather station with radar on the set, because it was too dangerous. We had to really, really be careful for everyone. And it's so funny that, although the film is about tornadoes ... that several times we would have to escape them to make the movie."

'Twister' director recalls the shock of seeing real tornado damage for the first time

The director said he still recalls the "rude awakening" of seeing real tornado damage for the first time during production in Oklahoma, finding it much worse in person than seeing it on TV.

"It was really unbelievable how a farm, beautiful looking, an hour later, there's nothing left of it. And it's pretty shocking. ... I wanted to make sure that we got that right, so that we can actually, really make that destruction look real," de Bont recalled.

"We were really able to really replicate it in a way that is fully believable."

Along with using the practical filmmaking technique of buying up empty homes and businesses and then actually destroying them for the film, the "Twister" team earned two Academy Awards nominations, for best sound and for the movie's groundbreaking visual effects.

"We were already on the way of developing new technology for movies, and then 'Jurassic Park' already had done elements of that. But it was really not integrated yet in full effect and with the quality that it really needed for big projects," he said.

For instance, the legendary team at Industrial Light & Magic had to use special effects to make the landscapes and skies captured over four months of shooting look like the single stormy day of the film's narrative.

"Making that possible to ... make it one of the same look, it's an amazing achievement. And I think that development of that movie has excited a lot of people technically, and they started to work more and more on it. And that's why you see now so many visual effects movies," de Bont said.

When it stormed into theaters in 1996, "Twister" was a commercial smash. It became the second highest grossing film of the year, earning more than $494 million at the global box office, which makes it the most commercially successful made-in-Oklahoma movie to be released to date. In Wakita, the Twister Movie Museum continues to preserve and display memorabilia from the first movie.

Almost 30 years later, "Twister" continues to capture people's imaginations. Besides the new "Twisters" movie and the 4K release of the original 1990s smash, "Twister" jumped into the list of top 10 movies streaming on Max as soon as it debuted on the streaming service July 1.

"It's great. You kind of forget if you haven't seen it for a long time. Then you look at it ... and, wow, this is still a good movie. This still could be almost released now," de Bont said.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Filmmaker of 1996 blockbuster 'Twister' shares looks behind the scenes