Steven Spielberg doesn’t mind boarding his private jet to try and straighten out trouble on one of his sets.
The iconic filmmaker passed on helming the 1996 disaster film “Twister,” but took a role producing it from afar. When he caught wind of the increasingly volatile conditions on set, however, Spielberg flew to Norman, Oklahoma, to put the fear of God into director Jan de Bont.
“It had been brewing,” “Twister” stunt coordinator Mic Rodgers recently told The Independent.
“The ramp came down on the Learjet and Spielberg walked down it and he never touched the ground,” he continued. “He just stood there yelling at Jan. He never even got off the plane. He was just fucking yelling, pointing his finger at him, screaming at him.”
De Bont had, by that point, proven himself a talented action director with “Speed” (1994). And “Twister,” from a script co-written by “Jurassic Park” novelist Michael Crichton about dedicated tornado chasers in the Midwest, ultimately became a classic 1990s popcorn flick, as evident from the success of the new sequel “Twisters.”
But during production, tensions on set grew just as stormy as the plot when de Bont allegedly shoved a camera assistant aside one day and refused to apologize. The entire camera, sound and wardrobe departments walked off set in protest — resulting in an unexpected visit.
“I don’t know what [Spielberg] said to [de Bont], but he barked at him for, like, 15 minutes and got back in the plane,” Rodgers told the Independent. “The plane left without him even stepping off.”
Production had reportedly been fraught with injuries and setbacks. Actor Helen Hunt was struck and concussed by a car door while driving through a cornfield, her stunt double cracked a rib, and cinematographer Jack Green was hospitalized when a hydraulic set reportedly collapsed on him.
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Due to the unexpectedly beautiful weather during production, meanwhile, de Bont used such powerful electrical lamps to alter the lighting around them that Hunt and her co-star, the late Bill Paxton, were left blinded for days.
“We were there all day shooting the scene, and the next day, Bill came into the makeup trailer and said, ‘Can you see?’” Hunt told Vulture in 2020. “And I said, ‘Not really.’ It was super-weird … I guess they fry your corneas off and then they grow back.”
The director himself came across as minimally remorseful at the time.
“I love Helen to death, but you know she can also be a little bit clumsy sometimes,” de Bont told The Spokesman-Review following the film’s release. Hunt responded: “Clumsy? The guy burnt my retinas, but I’m clumsy.”
De Bont didn’t immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Spielberg fortunately had little reason to visit the set of the film’s sequel, “Twisters,” directed by Lee Isaac Chung. The sequel hit theaters on Friday to enormous box-office success. According to lead actor Glen Powell, however, the returning producer did have some advice about the ending.