Mark Cuban Nearly Starred In/Ruined ‘Twister’

Long before most tornado-centric movies involved swirling cyclones of bloodthirsty fish, there was Twister, the 1996 thriller starring the late Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, and a CGI cow that captured America’s hearts for some reason. Now there are reports of an upcoming sequel in the works (unimaginatively dubbed Twisters) which at least sounds preferable to a prequel about the early years of that cow, eating grass and sleeping long before that freak storm.

One name you’ll notice doesn’t appear anywhere in the cast list for Twister: Mark Cuban. This may seem as random a statement as pointing out that Elon Musk doesn’t make an appearance in The Maltese Falcon – except for the fact that Cuban, the famous billionaire, and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, actually auditioned for a role in Twister. He even reportedly got a callback, but the part of storm-chaser Dusty ultimately went to legendary actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. So … good call, producers of Twister. 

Cuban was already a millionaire at the time and became a full-blown billionaire soon afterward. Still, he did later joke that Hoffman was “miscast” and that he was really “right for the role.” And Cuban did manage to land a few other acting roles around that time; he played a villain (literally named “villain”) in the 1995 action movie Lost at Sea and showed up in multiple episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger – plus, his tornado-based acting aspirations were eventually realized to some extent when he played The President of the United States in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! Sure it starred Bo Derek and Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath, and not Helen Hunt or Bill Paxton, but it’s something.

Until the sequel gets made, at least we can still satiate all of our Twister needs by visiting the world’s saddest museum.

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Thumbnail: Warner Bros.