The Story Behind Stanley Kubrick Letting 'Twister' Director Jan De Bont Use A Clip From 'The Shining' In His Tornado Movie: ‘The Studio Actually Didn’t Believe It’
Later this month, audiences will ride the stormy summer blockbuster season through the offering that is Lee Isaac Chung’s "Twisters," a reimagining/reinterpretation of the classic 1996 thriller, helmed by Jan de Bont. The new "Twisters" already is getting positive reactions, including a vote of confidence from the unofficial King of Blockbusters, Tom Cruise. Imagine the irony, then, if Cruise were to learn the full story behind his one-time "Eyes Wide Shut" collaborator Stanley Kubrick supporting Jan de Bont on the original "Twister," allowing him to use a clip from "The Shining" during a pivotal scene in the original film?
Behind-the-scenes stories like this are the best. Jan de Bont was coming off of "Speed," and looking for his next high-profile adventure. He found it in "Twister," a movie about professional storm chasers who increasingly encounter more dangerous tornadoes over the course of the film. De Bont, from the very beginning, knew that he wanted to associate one of the bigger twisters – visually – with Stanley Kubrick’s horror masterpiece, "The Shining." And while appearing on CinemaBlend’s official ReelBlend podcast, De Bont told the cool story about how the movie was included in his film.
Behind-the-scenes stories like this are the best. Jan de Bont was coming off of "Speed," and looking for his next high-profile adventure. He found it in "Twister," a movie about professional storm chasers who increasingly encounter more dangerous tornadoes over the course of the film. De Bont, from the very beginning, knew that he wanted to associate one of the bigger twisters – visually – with Stanley Kubrick’s horror masterpiece, "The Shining." And while appearing on CinemaBlend’s official ReelBlend podcast, De Bont told the cool story about how the movie was included in his film.
Transcript
00:00We're film nerds, so whenever you get to a drive-in movie sequence and you decide to
00:06put The Shining up on screen, we all get a kick out of your choice of what film that's
00:10going to be.
00:11I'm just genuinely curious if there was a reason why you picked The Shining as the movie
00:14that was showing during the drive-in.
00:17I had that in mind almost at the very beginning of the production process.
00:24And I told the studio, I want to see on that screen a part of The Shining where Nicholson
00:33with his axe breaks through the wall and comes right at it.
00:38Because I basically created five different tornadoes.
00:42The first one was kind of like a pretty boy, beautiful, but not knowing what to do.
00:47The second one was basically always talking to each other, and that became the double
00:57water tornado.
00:58Another one was the big bully, and the second one, that was him.
01:03And I wanted to see him as the big bully as he comes through.
01:11And they said, oh, you never get that from Kubrick.
01:14But I had spoken to Kubrick once before, and he had, by that time, seen Speed, and he loved
01:24it.
01:25And he said, absolutely, you can do that.
01:27And no problem at all.
01:28And it was so great to really, because the studio actually didn't believe it.
01:32Because it was the same studio that represented his movies, no?
01:35Sure.
01:37And they said, no, you can't.
01:39Let me try it.
01:40And he said, absolutely.
01:43It was so great.
01:45Did you call him or write a letter?
01:47No, we had to.
01:49The first studio wrote very polite letters, but that's not how it really works.
01:54You have to really, and also, I mean, as my childhood, when I was still living in Amsterdam,
02:03the very first movie on the big screen I ever saw was 2001.
02:07I went to London in the first week of the opening of the movie, and I was totally blown
02:13away.
02:14That type of storytelling, that kind of visual storytelling, was so revealing, so new, so
02:21exciting.
02:22And since then, I've been an eternal fan of Kubrick.