Spielberg's Role: Executive Producer
US Release Date: 1996

Spielberg's summer hit of 1996 came from nowhere without warning taking the world by storm (sorry, had to say it). Non stop special effects brought the title character to life in a way that only Spielberg can. Once again millions of people flocked to the theater to see something that exists only in its creators minds.

Spielberg brought together the writing of Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) and his wife Anne-Marie Martin, the direction of Jan De Bont (director of Speed and the cinematographer for Die Hard, Lethal Weapon 3, and The Hunt for Red October), the special effects of Industrial Light and Magic, the acting talents of Helen Hunt (Mad About You) and Bill Paxton (Apollo 13, True Lies, Aliens, Tombstone and Predator 2) and the Shear power of Universal Pictures, Warner Brothers and his own Amblin Entertainment. Investing only $30,000,000 (low for a major motion picture), Twister produced some of the best special effects of the summer.

Bill Paxton plays a former storm chaser come back to get divorce papers signed by Hellen Hunts character Jo. During the meeting of the two, Bill gets caught up in placing his invention (Dorothy) in its proper position in the path of the tornado. Dorothy is their version of TOTO(an acronym for the TOtable Tornado Observatory, a actual piece of equipment used by scientists to measure wind speeds in a tornado). The rest is tornado after tornado of great movie.