“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”

That quote, attributed incorrectly to Mark Twain, looms large in “The Storm,” an effects-heavy two-part TV movie premiering tonight on NBC and concluding next Sunday.

Treat Williams and James Van Der Beek star as, respectively, a billionaire who tries to control the weather for his own sinister agenda and the idealistic young scientist who signs on for the project, then discovers what’s really going on as Mother Nature blows her stack spectacularly, mainly in the form of torrential rains, as an Army official (David James Elliott, “JAG,”) plots to use the technology as a formidable weapon to make the United States an unbeatable superpower. Luke Perry, Teri Polo and John Larroquette also star.

Ratings prospects are high, given that so many people love watching “weather porn,” footage involving extreme weather events, says executive producer Robert Halmi Jr.

“I don’t think it’s just in fiction, in movies. It’s also in reality shows like ‘Storm Chasers’ and ‘It Could Happen Tomorrow’ and all those shows based on terrible weather and storms,” Halmi says. “I think people are fascinated with things they can’t control—and Mother Nature certainly is the ultimate of what we can’t control.

“In our film we take it one step further. We have someone who tries to control weather, and it backfires. You can’t control it even when you are a billionaire and you have the technology. It’s one of the last real mysteries on the planet that we’ll never truly solve, although we’ll understand it.”

Although “The Storm” is airing at a time when climate change is a dominant story in the world news, Halmi insists the filmmakers have no real social agenda in presenting this thriller right now.

“Our goal is to be a good storyteller, and if [greater] good comes from our story, that’s great,” he says. “It’s really more of a technology tale than a global warming tale. It’s about the abuse of technology, all these computers and things that people can do that don’t necessarily lead to something good. It’s really just entertaining, larger than life, and hopefully from the story there is some morality and some great messages from within, because that’s what good storytelling delivers.”

Van Der Beek says he didn’t have a problem understanding how his idealistic young scientist, Kirk Hafner, would sign on for a project that turns out to be as dangerous as this one does.

“Kirk is a brilliant young scientist who is brought into this independently funded ‘dream team’ with the task of trying to manipulate the weather,” Van Der Beek explains. “He realizes there is a lot of good you can do by doing that, whether it’s downgrading a hurricane or bringing rain to the Sudan, so he comes in with the best of intentions. I’m sure he also was excited by the science of it. Anytime you get to play and innovate with the best in your field, that’s the ultimate goal, right? But then, as often happens, with great power comes great temptation, and people try to take this thing he has managed to create and want to use it to gain power.

“That puts him in a very difficult position, because he has to take this thing that he has created out of the hands of the people who funded it, and he is almost betraying them in going public with this thing that they are trying to keep secret. He’s a loyal guy, so that’s difficult for him, and he ends up being on the run, and that’s when all the fun starts.”

On the cover: James Van Der Beek