In my full conversation with de Bont, which you can hear on today’s episode of the /Film Daily podcast, the director hammers home the point that he wanted to create an immersive experience with “Twister” so the audience could feel as if they were right there with the film’s characters. Part of the way he went about achieving that was to create an environment on set with multiple cameras going at once so he could capture genuine reactions from stars Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt as they were in the midst of the large-scale weather-centric action scenes. But even de Bont knows that there’s a breaking point when it comes to going too big in a story like this:
“Like, 15 years later, there was a project written about a super F5 tornado. When it gets down to that, I’m always suddenly feeling a little hesitant. Then it becomes a little bit more like too imaginary, too fanciful, and too over the top. [“Twister”] was not like that. It had to be much more real.”
It’s unclear if that quote contains a reference to a possible draft of a “Twister” sequel that never saw the light of day, or if he was talking about the found-footage tornado movie “Into the Storm” from 2014.
But even if de Bont wasn’t interested in a follow-up, one person from the original production was: Bill Paxton. In 2012, Paxton said he wanted to direct a “Twister” sequel that would have been a generational story of his and Helen Hunt’s characters passing the baton to their daughter as they track a gigantic storm similar to the real-life Tri-State Tornado from 1925. You can read much more about his vision in our article, but it’s a shame he passed away before he got to try his hand at tackling that story.
In any case, you can listen to Jan de Bont talk all about the making of “Twister” in our interview below:
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