“Jaws,” “E.T.” and “Jurassic Park” — those were just a few of the films that captured Ashley Jay Sandberg’s imagination when she was growing up in Baltimore County.
“I spent a lot of time as a kid just watching videos at our house. My parents were okay with that. As long as I played outside some, I would just watch movies over and over,” Sandberg recalled. “I remember at Carroll Manor [Elementary School], I said … ‘I want to be a movie star.’”
Now 40 and living in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter, the Maryland native has been putting her mark on Hollywood off-camera, most recently alongside Steven Spielberg and Thomas Hayslip as an executive producer for “Twisters,” one of the summer’s most successful films . The fresh take on the 1996 blockbuster outpaced box office expectations when it hit theaters in July, grossing $80.5 million in its first weekend, the biggest-ever opening for a disaster movie, Forbes reported . This month, it became available to rent or buy at home.
From Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures and Amblin Entertainment — and directed by “Minari” filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung — “Twisters” follows former storm chaser Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her friend Javi Rivera (Anthony Ramos) as they embark on a mission to track tornadoes with new tech in Oklahoma. It’s there that they meet “tornado wrangler” Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), who hams it up on social media with a crew that shoots fireworks into the belly of the beast.
“Twisters” is an action-packed film with humor — and also one that shows the devastation caused by a “once-in-a-generation” tornado outbreak.
“It was the right time for it,” said Sandberg, who also was an executive music producer for the film’s soundtrack with Chung.
“We have a lot of superhero movies out. We have sci-fi, fantasy. And I think with ‘Twisters,’ we have an opportunity to make grounded superheroes. People who are our friends and peers, and people who are in the science community, really trying to figure out: ‘Okay, how do we track these storms sooner? What can we be doing?’”
Growing up in Maryland, Sandberg remembers having to go into the basement when she experienced her first tornado warning. Her home state is also where she saw the original “Twister” movie, at a theater in Towson.
At Dulaney High School, where she graduated in 2002, Sandberg was president of the speech club, with ideas of getting into news production. A film studies course she took at Pepperdine University, where she graduated in 2006, set her on a path to Hollywood.
“She always had a great, bubbly personality,” said Bianca Jay, Sandberg’s older sister. “She has worked really hard and prioritized this in her life.”
Jay, a Pennsylvania marketing executive, recalled Sandberg wearing a faux-fur jacket and sunglasses when she professed her desire to star in movies as a girl, and said her sister loved writing stories to read to her siblings.
“What she’s blossomed into now is not surprising,” said Phyllis Loveland-Letersky, a family friend who lives in Freeland. “To have a Maryland girl go out to California and make it on her own … that’s pretty remarkable.”
In California, Sandberg waited tables and took a receptionist job at The Kennedy/Marshall Company — where she worked her way up to becoming the head of production development, a role she held through the end of last year before becoming an independent producer.
While at the film and TV production company, she served as an associate producer of the six-time Emmy-nominated 2020 documentary “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart.” She also oversaw the development and production of “Jurassic World Dominion,” released in 2022. Filming had to shut down during the coronavirus pandemic, but it was the first major movie production in the UK to get back on its feet, Sandberg said. It’s an experience she said prepared her for the making of “Twisters.”
Filming for the movie started in Oklahoma in May of 2023, but came to a halt when the SAG-AFTRA strike began in July — with only about a dozen days left of filming, Sandberg noted. “We were so close to the end, but we couldn’t do anything about it,” she said.
During the strike, the movie was edited before it was complete. When filming resumed in November, the natural landscape had changed, so shots like the opening scene of Edgar-Jones walking through a grassy bluff were enhanced using physical and visual effects.
Among the movie’s stars, it was clear skies, Sandberg said.
“Because we had to live there, in Oklahoma, I think it gave an opportunity for the cast to get really close,” she said. “So really, the chemistry you see on camera with everyone, really they had off camera, too.”
Powell was cast before the release of “Anyone but You,” in which he stars opposite Sydney Sweeney, and “Hit Man.” With Ramos’ character Javi Rivera, who shares a last name with Sandberg’s maternal grandmother, she seized an opportunity for Puerto Rican representation.
“We really wanted the cast to feel reflective of the audience. … I’m Puerto Rican, my family is,” she said. “So originally, Anthony’s character was named Mason. But Anthony’s not a Mason. He’s a Javi. … So it was really exciting to be able to call Anthony and tell him, ‘We want you to play this character as yourself.’”
Sandberg is also an advocate for women commanding leadership roles in the film industry. In “Twisters,” she said her daughter Brooklyn’s brief cameo during a National Weather Service field trip gave the 8-year-old a glimpse of a day on set.
As an executive producer, Sandberg helped develop the script and said producer Frank Marshall encouraged her to push the project forward. When “Top Gun: Maverick” director Joseph Kosinski couldn’t direct the film, she helped bring on Chung.
“I really wanted to think outside the box for this,” she said.
“Twisters” incorporated science from the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, plus input from tornado consultant Kevin Kelleher, Sandberg noted.
The impact of climate change on tornadoes isn’t easy to determine and most research doesn’t definitively link the two, according to NOAA and other organizations, though tornado behavior has been changing in recent decades, with large outbreaks in short spans of time becoming more common even as the total number in the country each year remains roughly steady . So while the lack of any direct references to global warming in the movie stood out to some viewers , Sandberg said the film is meant to spark thought and discussion.
“Our characters are asking [themselves] the same questions that we ask ourselves. … ‘Why are we seeing extreme weather?’” she said. “I hope it continues to excite people to continue to learn about climate and weather and nature.”
The movie also doesn’t shy away from portraying the destruction that can be caused by tornadoes in real life.
“While we still wanted to make this enjoyable film for people to watch, we also didn’t want to gloss over the fact that people are surviving these natural disasters,” she said.
On the horizon, Sandberg sees herself collaborating with Chung to make more movies that inspire.
“We are looking to continue to tell these stories that offer the audiences a sense of hope,” she said.
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